RICHMOND, Ky. -- The fate of the chemical weapons stockpile at the Blue Grass Army Depot remains in limbo as the debate continues on whether to transport the weapons or neutralize them on-site.

Just a few years ago, Madison County residents got the Pentagon to agree to build a $2 billion plant to chemically neutralize the depot's weapons. Now, the Pentagon has delayed building such a facility and wants the Army to study alternatives, including moving the weapons.

Madison Judge-Executive Kent Clark said he doubts the weapons are going anywhere, because elected officials would never allow it."I don't think under any circumstances could they ever transport those chemicals over public highways," he said. "It'll never go that far and they know it."

On the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed that the weapons will not be moved because of the risks involved in transporting them."After the time and energy I have expended on ensuring these weapons are disposed of in a safe and environmentally friendly manner, I am personally insulted by the department's efforts to delay destruction and its suggestion of transporting the weapons elsewhere," McConnell said.

The United State has about 31,500 tons of chemical weapons and under an international treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1997, it has until April 2007 to destroy them. It can ask that the deadline be extended by five years.

To destroy the stockpile, the Army built incinerators in four states and on remote Johnson Atoll in the South Pacific. But after widespread opposition in Madison County and political pressure in Washington, the Pentagon agreed to build a neutralization plant instead of an incinerator at the depot.However, earlier this month, preliminary budget documents obtained by the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group showed that the Pentagon planned to slash funding for neutralization plants at the depot and in Pueblo, Colo. The move would delay construction for several years.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, speculates that the Pentagon might resort to wholesale shuffling of weapons in order to make the treaty deadline.But he doubts the Pentagon can make the deadline regardless of what it does. All four incinerators could miss the 2012 deadline because of frequent breakdowns and other problems, he said.

Not everyone in Madison County thinks the weapons pose much of a threat."We won World War II shipping explosives and chemicals all over the country," said William Scott, 83, a former chief of the ammunition surveillance division at the depot.

But most were not happy with the news that the weapons might be moved. Richmond city commissioners quickly voted to bar chemical weapons from the city's roads and rail lines. On Friday, local officials sent a letter inviting Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense, to come to Madison County next month to explain what was going on.

If a neutralization plant is built, it would create hundreds of jobs and fuel growth in a county where the population already is increasing rapidly.Plans call for the depot's munitions to be disassembled and the nerve and blister agents removed, chemically decomposed and neutralized by caustic or water hydrolysis. The resulting chemical compounds, called hydrolysates, would be broken down into basic elements by a pressure-cooker-like process called supercritical water oxidation.

Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, which would operate the plant, has halted construction work and hiring while the budget problem is sorted out.Many Madison County residents are reversing field from their original positions, when incineration was the Army's sole disposal method and they argued that transporting the weapons was a better idea.

But while some say the activists have simply delayed the destruction of the weapons, Williams disagrees. He said the safer technology is worth the fight."Had we not said a word," he said, "we'd still have nothing constructed over there."

Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com