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Pueblo Could Ship CW Disposal Waste for Processing
The U.S. Army is considering shipping waste from chemical weapons neutralization at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado to New Jersey for final processing, Defense Environment Alert reported last week (see GSN, April 26). The proposal mirrors the controversial plan to transport waste from weapons disposal at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana to the same DuPont plan. That effort calls for the liquid waste, hydrolysate, to be processed and dumped into the Delaware River. The Defense Department will make its decision regarding Pueblo’s waste following submission of a third-party report on treatment options at the depot. The report is due in August. The Pueblo disposal facility has yet to be built. Critics have argued that shipping waste creates an unnecessary danger for communities through which it passes, and have called for the hydrolysate to be processed at the depots. Nonetheless, the Army “is keeping shipment of hydrolysate as an option” for Pueblo, according to the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program. The choice “could go either way,” an AWCA spokeswoman said. “There are certain cost-saving factors we’re considering. Clearly if you don’t have to build a (new) facility for something that already exists off-post, you save money.” One member of the Colorado Citizens Advisory Commission disagreed. “I believe litigation would be filed here in Colorado and other states if they tried to ship it clear to New Jersey,” the source told Defense Environment Alert. “It would add millions to the cost and take years. I think what DOD will find is that there are so many barriers (to shipping hydrolysate) that it won’t be cost-beneficial in the long run” (Defense Environment Alert, May 2).
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