Chemical weapons plant work starts
Blue Grass material will be destroyed

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Ky. -- U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell was joined by local officials yesterday to mark the beginning of construction of a government plant that will destroy tons of deadly chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot.

The weapons, including mustard gas, sarin and VX, are left over from the Cold War and have been stored in bunkers at the depot near Richmond for more than six decades.

McConnell spoke yesterday at a reception at Eastern Kentucky University to mark groundbreaking for the $2 billion neutralization plant, The Richmond Register reported.

"This is the day we break ground on the disposal of heinous chemical weapons that have threatened this community for as long as they have been stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot," McConnell said. "It has been a hard road to get where we are today. We have had to push the Pentagon every step of the way."

Under the terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, arms stockpiled at eight sites across the country, including Richmond, must be destroyed by 2012. The deadliest materials at the depot are housed in earth-covered igloos surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence and acres of forest.

McConnell has worked to ensure the Department of Defense funds the destruction mission. In the past two years, the Pentagon has frozen and diverted funds originally meant for destruction operations.

"People in the community alerted me to this, and we were able to stop that effort in its tracks through legislation," he said.

Several officials spoke at the event, including Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization credited with pushing for the neutralization of the weapons. The government originally planned to burn the weapons.

Williams said his wife prompted him to oppose plans to burn the weapons. "We had just heard that they were going to burn these weapons in the middle of our community and my wife looked at me and said, 'Someone has to do something,' " he said yesterday.

Site preparation for the facility will continue into 2007. At its peak, the plant is expected to employ about 900 workers. The Blue Grass depot will likely be the nation's final chemical weapons depository to begin disarming its stockpiles.