Tue, Mar. 9, 2004

DOD asks for $129.4 million for Pine Bluff incinerator
Thursday, Feb 23, 2006

By Alison Vekshin
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department is asking Congress for $129.4 million to continue running the incinerator at the Pine Bluff Arsenal through September 2007.

The money would fund operating expenses for the $500 million incineration plant that began destroying the arsenal's stockpile of aging chemical weapons last March, according to a budget estimate the Defense Department released for its Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction Program.

Last year, Congress approved a higher amount, $148.1 million, for the Pine Bluff incinerator for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2006.

"The Pine Bluff Chemical Demilitarization Facility requirements vary from year to year based on anticipated operational needs," Army spokesman Greg Mahall said. "The fiscal 2007 funding request is reflective of their requirements and takes into account moneys from funding streams available to the program.

"As such, we anticipate the facility will continue its mission without interruption or delay," he said.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal is one of eight sites that house the nation's reserve of chemical weapons, which must be eliminated by a 2012 international treaty deadline.

The arsenal originally stored more than 12 percent of the entire stockpile, which had totaled 31,500 tons when it was first declared in 1985.

The funding would go toward labor, waste disposal, supplies, equipment rental, training and other costs.

Overall, the Defense Department is requesting $1.27 billion for the Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction program in 2007, below the $1.39 billion budgeted in fiscal 2006.

Constructed in 2002, the plant is scheduled to destroy the entire stockpile of 3,850 tons of chemical agents by 2010, said Raini Wright, a spokeswoman for the incinerator, formally known as the Pine Bluff Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.

So far, the arsenal's incinerator has destroyed 37.9 percent of the rockets and 4.6 percent of the nerve agent stockpiles, she said.



E-mail: avekshin@stephensmedia.com