Napalm Train Now on a Road to Nowhere

A decade ago, it was a barge loaded with garbage that generated an international stink, floating homeless down the East Coast because no one would take its contents.

Now it is a rail car filled with napalm, bound for the Chicago area from Southern California this week amid a runaway debate about how best to dispose of the deadly chemical remnants of the Vietnam War.

The train left Fallbrook in northern San Diego County on Saturday carrying two 6,000-gallon drums of napalm in one car. It rumbled through Texas on Tuesday, headed for an Indiana treatment plant as the first step in a two-year plan to dispose of 3 million gallons of the jellied gasoline and turn it into industrial fuel.

But there is a hitch: The treatment plant no longer wants the stuff, and an array of powerful people in the Midwest wants the train to turn around.

The political maelstrom that the disposal has generated in the Chicago area in recent weeks “has made it impossible to continue with this napalm recycling project,” Pollution Control Industries President Robert L. Campbell said Tuesday. The tug of war over the issue has given the firm no choice but to pull out of the $1.7-million contract, he said.

Navy officials, hoping to finally overcome numerous false starts in their 16-year effort to get rid of the napalm, were blindsided by the company’s withdrawal. And while officials scrambled to find a solution Tuesday, no one seemed certain what would happen to the train bound for nowhere.

“We really don’t know what’s going to happen at this point. We’re reviewing all our options,” said Lee Saunders, a spokesman for the Navy’s environmental division in San Diego.

Chicago congressman Rod Blagojevich knows what he wants to happen.

“I’m hopeful the train will simply turn around and go back to [the naval weapons station at] Fallbrook and return the napalm there. Then we can roll up our sleeves and work with the Navy to address an urgent need to get rid of it in a safe and sensible way,” he said.

Since 1973, the Navy facility in Fallbrook has housed the military’s entire arsenal of napalm in 33,000 unfused bombs. But Southern California politicians have been pushing with increasing stridence for its disposal, noting that some of the bombs were leaking toxic substances.

As part of the plan approved by the Navy at a total cost of $25 million, hundreds of shipments of the napalm were to be sent by train over the next two years to the PCI plant in East Chicago, Ind., outside Chicago. There it was to be treated and turned into fuel for cement kilns. Trains would head out almost daily from Fallbrook, officials said.

But Blagojevich (D-Ill.) and other area politicians have skewered the plan in recent weeks, saying that the Navy thrust it on them with no real warning or explanation. The congressman said he is worried about potential leaks and explosions from the shipments as they pass through numerous residential areas.

“This was a serious weapon of war that was dropped from the U.S. arsenal because it was considered inhumane, and I just don’t think it makes sense to send it two-thirds of the way across the country like this,” he said. “The risk is overwhelming.”

Disposal in Utah Urged

Blagojevich wants the napalm taken to disposal sites in Utah or elsewhere. Other officials joined in.

“I will do everything in my power to see that [Pollution Control Industries] is allowed to withdraw from the contract and that no napalm enters northwest Indiana,” said Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.).

Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) accused the Navy of ignoring the concerns of the Environmental Protection Agency, although the Pentagon said the plan had EPA approval.

And a number of environmental groups applauded the halt in the project.

“We are very pleased that [Pollution Control Industries] has taken this action, and we assume that the Navy will respond appropriately very soon,” said Joanna Hoelscher of Citizens for a Better Environment.

But Navy officials and others involved in the disposal insisted that the napalm is safe for transport, despite the firestorm that has erupted over it.

“Unfortunately, people are reacting to the emotional nature of this issue,” said Greg Koller, a spokesman for the Ohio-based Battelle Co., a nonprofit scientific firm that was awarded the job of overseeing the disposal project and hired Pollution Control Industries to convert it to fuel.

“Just the word ‘napalm’ conjures up a lot of images,” he said. “People remember the famous picture of the little girl with her back burned, running, and they don’t understand from a technical aspect that this stuff is safer than the gas at their local gas station.”

Indeed, federal railway standards rate napalm as a low to moderate risk, safer than propane and other gases, said Jerry Jenkins, a spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, the line that is carrying the napalm. The railroad never had reason to question the safety of transporting the napalm--but it did think twice about the political fallout when it was asked to transport the shipment.

Burlington would not pinpoint the train’s location, saying only that it is expected to be somewhere between Amarillo, Texas, and Kansas City, Mo., by today.

Train Still on Course

As of late Tuesday, neither the Navy nor Battelle officials had asked the rail line to alter its course, and the train--carrying the napalm along with dozens of cars holding other commercial cargo--was continuing on as planned, Jenkins said. The napalm was scheduled to reach East Chicago next week.

“We’re just taking our marching orders,” he said. “We haven’t been told to do anything yet, and it’s business as usual.”

At Battelle, Koller said he is not sure whether the company could ask the train to turn around or even stop its route, because of environmental laws governing the transport of contaminants. The company is assessing its options.

“We’re really taken aback by the sudden change of heart” at PCI, he said. “We’ve gotten a lot of mixed signals from them. Thursday, they acted disappointed that we hadn’t shipped it out that day. Friday, they expressed an interest in renegotiating the contract to adjust the costs. We shipped on Saturday, and then Monday they want to cancel the thing. The whole thing has been a real surprise, and I don’t know what will happen.”

Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Napalm Route

A freight train carrying 12,000 gallons of Vietnam War-era napalm is in limbo between Amarillo, Texas, and Kansas City after a Midwestern company that had contracted to dispose of the deadly chemical backed out of the deal.