Senators ask to lift cost ceiling at weapons disposal sites
Associated Press
Fri, June 167, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Chemical weapons disposal sites in Kentucky and Colorado are hamstrung by outdated cost ceilings that should be removed, senators from the two states told a Defense Department official in a letter sent Friday.

The four senators told Kenneth J. Krieg, the recently appointed undersecretary of defense, that forcing the programs to stick to old cost estimates jeopardizes safety and quick progress at the sites."

The path forward in execution of safe and expeditious disposal of the stockpiles at these two locations is in jeopardy due to this fundamental flaw in the process," the senators wrote.

In 2003, the Pentagon offered certified figures, saying disposal of the stockpiled weapons would cost $2 billion at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky., and $1.5 billion at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colo.

As the projected costs of the programs crept over those totals, the Pentagon started asking site managers for redesigns and other cost-cutting measures to meet the caps.

But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in an April letter to Krieg's predecessor, said defense officials were never required to list a specific cost, and locking in an estimate before the design work started "seems ... misguided at best."

McConnell was joined on Friday's letter by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., and Colorado Sens. Wayne Allard, a Republican, and Ken Salazar, a Democrat.

Under an international treaty, ratified by the Senate in 1997, the weapons stockpiled at eight sites across the country must be destroyed by 2012.

The Blue Grass and Pueblo depots are the only sites where disposal facilities have not already been constructed.

Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization in Berea, Ky., said the 2003 estimates are unrealistic and could lead site managers to avoid new technologies that could make the sites safer.

"The way the situation is right now, cost is driving the design, which can lead to safety taking a back seat to corner-cutting," he said.

Williams said defense officials could lift the price caps by telling site managers the estimates are no longer accurate, or by asking Congress to accept an amended version of the certified figures.

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On the Net:Chemical Weapons Working Group: http://www.cwwg.org