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

WASHINGTON – A plant designed to destroy 523 tons of chemical weapons at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot can do the job safely, according to an independent study released yesterday.

But unexpected start-up problems could occur, given that some steps that would be used to destroy the plant's stockpile of aging chemical weapons haven't been tried with other steps in the process, said the study released by the National Research Council, a private, nonprofit group that is part of the National Academy of Sciences.

"I think in general the science is pretty well worked out," said Willard Gekler, a member of the council's committee of experts that conducted the study.

"What the committee concluded was that the combination of different process steps put in there should work," Gekler said.

In 2008, the Richmond, Ky., facility is scheduled to start neutralizing weapons such as sarin and mustard gas, first by mixing them with caustic chemicals or water, then superheating the mix to produce carbon dioxide, water and various salts.

Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a citizens' group in Berea, Ky., that monitors the Blue Grass facility, said the study was "encouraging" because it identified all areas that the Army, the contractors and the community already are working on.

Various elements of the destruction process have been extensively studied and in some cases tested, but all of them "have never been deployed together as a single integrated process," the council report said.

The study also said the neutralized material will corrode the walls of the plant's water reactors, which could plug the equipment.