Chemical disposal deadline may shift

By James R. Carroll
jcarroll@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

WASHINGTON -- All chemical weapons at the Blue Grass Army Depot are to be destroyed by 2017 under an amendment approved yesterday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

That deadline is six years earlier than the Department of Defense currently is planning.

"Without a firm deadline, DoD will continue to drag its feet, and this is unacceptable to me and to the people of Madison County, Ky.," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.

He is the sponsor of the amendment, which was adopted as part of the fiscal 2008 defense spending bill. The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote.

McConnell has battled with the Pentagon for years over the schedule for getting rid of 523 tons of nerve agent at the depot near Richmond.

He has said that a delay to 2023 would expose nearby residents to continued risk from the aging weapons.

Stretching out disposal in Kentucky and at a similar facility in Pueblo, Colo., also would cost taxpayers an additional $3.3 billion, McConnell has said.

The amendment is significant because it "would force the Pentagon to fund the project to achieve that (2017) deadline," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Berea.

At the moment, a lower level of projected spending at Blue Grass would push the schedule to 2023, he said.

Preliminary work is under way at Blue Grass, where a plant to destroy the weapons is to be built.

Under the accelerated schedule McConnell wants, the cost of disposing of the weapons at Blue Grass would be about $2.3 billion, Williams said.

The slower schedule would cost close to $4 billion, he said.

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (202) 906-8141.