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April
15, 2004
The News
Journal (Delaware)
Fear for the health of
a river
'Red flag' raised over what plant dumps into water
By JEFF MONTGOMERY
Staff reporter
For nearly 30 years, the DuPont Co. has marketed its Chambers Works wastewater
plant as a treatment-for-hire operation, taking in hazardous liquids from
across the continent to boost revenue at its chemical complex in Deepwater,
N.J.
Now an Army proposal to ship chemical-weapons disposal waste from Indiana
to the plant is highlighting its status as one of the nation's top sources
of toxic water discharges, according to Environmental Protection Agency records.
DuPont wants an Army contract to treat up to 4 million gallons of caustic
wastewater containing chemicals left over after neutralization of VX nerve
agent, one of the world's deadliest chemical weapons. The project would replace
a disposal plan the Army abandoned last year in Ohio in the face of community
opposition.
Despite DuPont's patented method for scrubbing wastewater with carbon and
microbes, environmental groups have said the Secure Environmental Treatment
Unit at the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge symbolizes weaknesses in
the Clean Water Act. That law, members of state and national environmental
groups said, lets some wastewater plants serve as "pollution sinks,"
releasing toxic and sometimes obscure chemicals that may be overlooked or
go unmentioned in public reviews and reports.
"I think that a big red flag is flying above DuPont Chambers Works right
now, and frankly, it's begging for an investigation into what they are currently
discharging into the river, and what they propose to discharge into the river,"
said Maya van Rossum, who directs the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental
group.
Paul D. Schwartz, national policy director for the environmental group Clean
Water Action, said wastewater plants are required to identify on permits any
pollutants they expect to discharge from their plants. In some cases, however,
day-to-day releases of chemicals may go unmonitored because concentrations
are low, they are unmentioned on federal "priority pollutant" lists
or they have yet to be studied for toxic effects.
The governors of Delaware and New Jersey urged the Army last week to reconsider
its chemical weapons waste plan, pointing to evidence that Chambers Works
would simply dilute and discharge two compounds without a clear understanding
of the effect on the river.
Delaware Water Resources Director Kevin C. Donnelly said Wednesday that a
Delaware River Basin Commission permit for DuPont's operation appears to bar
the new VX waste enterprise without a full permit review. DuPont officials
said the company could begin the operation without an explicit permit approval.
But Donnelly said a 1991 commission approval for DuPont's operation prohibits
the company from releasing any pollutants to the river if they come from outside
the river basin - land that drains into the Delaware or its tributaries. State
officials last week pointed out that Chambers Works would merely dilute in
the river as much as 2.3 tons of the Army wastes per day.
"Dilution does not equal removal," said Donnelly, of the Delaware
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
Officials in Delaware also are examining their authority to influence activities
at Chambers Works. Although the plant is in New Jersey, its treated wastewater
exits from a pipe at the bottom of the river well inside Delaware.
Delaware regulators are concerned about a DuPont proposal to update its federal
water discharge permit to treat a wider range of new industrial pollutants
including chemical weapons disposal waste.
"It's a very significant issue for Delaware and New Jersey, and it's
something we need to catch up on," Donnelly said. "Millions of gallons
a day get handled and treated, and I think all of us are interested in taking
a closer look."
Chambers Works already handles a large percentage of industrial wastewater
generated in New Jersey, according to federal records.
"We've been doing this for 25 years. Industries and companies send us
their wastewater from all over North America," said Todd Owens, a DuPont
chemical engineer at the plant. "It's always been known that we're fairly
unique in terms of our technology."
But Donnelly said state officials have not closely examined the discharges,
or exercised authority over the New Jersey plant's releases into the river.
Delaware's state line begins at the edge of the water on New Jersey's side
of the river.
Major source of pollution
EPA reports show Chambers Works has discharged as much as 3.8 million pounds
of toxic pollutants yearly since 1989. Releases range from algae-promoting
nitrate compounds to substances that could cause cancer, developmental and
reproductive disorders or other problems in humans, animals or aquatic life.
Annual totals have varied widely. Output in 2001 was
less than 1.2 million pounds, making the operation the nation's 39th largest
source of toxic pollution to water.
Nitrate compounds, which can contribute to clouding of the water and reduction
in oxygen levels, which support aquatic life, accounted for the largest share
of pollution releases in 2001.
In 1997, Public Interest Research Group said
Chambers Works was the largest discharger along the Delaware River of toxic
metals and reproductive toxins - substances such as toluene, mercury and some
pesticides that can affect fertility or reproduction in humans and animals.
At the time, the New Jersey site was the nation's 14th
largest source of toxic water releases overall. A year later, it was 11th
on the list.
By comparison, the Motiva Enterprises Delaware City Refinery reported releasing
47,000 pounds of toxic pollutants into the river in 2001, less than 5 percent
of the Chambers Works release.
"This whole idea that you can sell the capacity at a sewage treatment
plant to handle a variety of contaminant loads, so the plants become pollution
sinks for stuff that's politically difficult or expensive to handle elsewhere
is outrageous," Clean Water Action's Schwartz said.
Anthony Farina, a spokesman for DuPont, said the Chambers Works wastewater
system is widely known for its capabilities, with many of its customers found
in New Jersey or neighboring states.
"They seek out our assistance because they simply do not have the technology
or capabilities to treat their wastewater safely or effectively," he
said.
Several environmental organizations said many potentially hazardous pollutants
never show up on routine public reports for Chambers Works or other wastewater
operations.
DuPont increased its releases of one such chemical,
called ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or C-8, to the river after lawsuits and
health concerns prompted the company to reduce discharges of the chemical
at a DuPont site in West Virginia.
The EPA last year said "potential toxicity concerns"
about C-8 and other chemicals in its class warranted a major study. Contributing
to the concerns were claims - disputed by the company - that company operations
had polluted drinking water supplies and sickened livestock.
Owens said DuPont had kept New Jersey informed about
the C-8 releases to the Delaware River. But that chemical and others are absent
from regular public reports because the compounds are unregulated or untested
for toxicity or the chemicals are diluted to levels that make monitoring unnecessary.
"If the states are not going in and doing aggressive auditing, then we're
relying on the good graces of the discharger," said Schwartz of Clean
Water Action. "The public is really left out of the loop. The only time
the public has the capacity to challenge the terms of the permit is when it
comes due and is up for renewal."
A DuPont voluntary disclosure document filed with the
EPA in early 2001 noted Chambers Works captures about 30 percent of the C-8
processed through its wastewater plant. About five tons of C-8 was discharged
into the river in 1999, and four tons were captured for disposal in the Deepwater
landfill. More recent estimates were unavailable.
Expanded operations planned
DuPont's proposed plan to treat wastes from the Army nerve agent disposal
program reflects new ambitions for the treatment plant. Company officials
said they want to expand the already wide range of industries their plant
can serve under their five-year National Pollution Discharge Elimination System
permit, which ended its regular cycle in January. Operations have continued
under an extension of the older permit while New Jersey considers a new plan
that was submitted last year.
Owens said the company identified in the new permit application additional
industries it will serve as well as additional compounds that could be discharged.
Chemical weapons "demilitarization" wastes are among the industries
DuPont wants to add to the permit, Owens said.
Treated wastewater from Chambers Works, company officials said, is harmless
even to minnows and water fleas, based on company scans for toxicity in the
plant's output.
"We think it's positive, in appropriate circumstances, that DuPont is
making available its waste treatment capacity," to other industries,
said New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley
Campbell.
Campbell said his agency, working closely with Delaware regulators, is considering
tighter restrictions on Chambers Works that might take into account the combined
effects of chemicals discharged by the plant.
"We want to make sure that neither New Jersey nor the Delaware River
are put at risk or treated as the disposal area of first resort," Campbell
said.
Once a gunpowder plant
Chambers Works, which covers 1,455 acres, began as a smokeless gunpowder plant
in 1892 and expanded into dyes, freon, Teflon,
tetraethyl lead and other compounds. During World War II, researchers at Deepwater
carried out work critical to the development of the first atomic bombs. The
site opened its current wastewater plant in 1976. In recent years, it expanded
an above-ground hazardous waste landfill that takes hazardous sludge from
the wastewater plant.
DNREC's review of the Army's waste disposal plan focused heavily on risks
involved in releasing to the river two phosphorus compounds, ethyl methylphosphonic
acid and methylphosphonic acid.
A DuPont study released in March found the two chemicals "will have no
aquatic toxicological impact." But state officials said little is known
about their effect in the environment, and questioned the reports issued on
the company's behalf.
"DuPont's assessment of the potential impacts associated with the discharge
was neither complete nor conservative," one DNREC study pointed out.
Donnelly said the latest proposal may trigger a review of an earlier company
decision to treat wastes from a mustard gas stockpile in Aberdeen, Md.
Paul F. Walker, with Global Green USA, an international environmental group,
said the phosphonic acids probably represent little long-term risk to the
river.
"It's not necessarily a bad idea to ship to DuPont, but you just have
to demand heavy oversight, complete transparency and access to data on a timely
basis, to build stakeholder confidence," Walker said.
The Delaware Nature Society said it opposes importing waste. "We ...
see no need to further degrade river quality by processing waste from other
states," said executive director Michael E. Riska.
Reach Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com.
