Sunday,
September 10, 2006
JAMES R. CARROLL'S NOTES FROM
WASHINGTON
Chemical
weapon clean up
While the chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot near
Richmond, Ky., haven't been destroyed yet, half the nation's total
stockpile of such weapons has been, according to the U.S. Army.
The Army's Chemical Materials Agency recently announced that 1.7
million munitions in the original stockpile are now gone.
The United States has signed an international treaty under which all of
its chemical weapons are supposed to be destroyed by 2012. The
government has said it won't meet the deadline, but is moving ahead as
quickly as possible.
Preliminary construction is under way at Blue Grass, and groundbreaking
on the disposal facility is scheduled for Oct. 28.
There are 101,764 chemical weapons, holding 523 tons of deadly agents,
according to Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working
Group in Berea, Ky.
Money for Blue
Grass
The Senate approved a defense spending bill Thursday night that
includes $215.9 million in fiscal 2007 for chemical weapons disposal
projects at the Blue Grass Army Depot and a sister site in Colorado.
The approval "is a critical step towards moving forward with the
projects at both locations," Williams said.
The bill now goes to conference with the House, which has similar
provisions for the chemical weapons program.
Still pending is a separate military construction bill in the Senate
that includes an additional $150.9 million for the Kentucky and
Colorado sites.