Defense Environment Alert 01/23/07

Defense Environment Alert

an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention

Vol. 15, No. 2

January 23, 2007

DOD EXTENDS CHEM DEMIL SCHEDULE TO 2023, DESPITE HIGHER COSTS

The Defense Department earlier this month formally certified its plan to stretch out the cost and schedule for destruction of stockpiled chemical weapons at sites in Kentucky and Colorado, despite conceding that total costs will be higher under the plan and that storage facilities for the weapons remain a terrorist "threat target" identified by the U.S. government.

Under the certified cost and schedule DOD's acquisition head sent to Congress Jan. 10, the department's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program will complete destruction of the Pueblo, CO, chemical munitions stockpile in 2020, and the Lexington, KY, stockpile by 2023, which will be the final stockpile site destroyed. Those dates are years beyond the 2012 final destruction deadline recently granted under an international treaty to the United States and Russia for their stockpiles of chemical munitions (Defense Environment Alert, Dec. 26, 2006, p7). "These [schedule] adjustments will make the program affordable on an annual basis," the ACWA program says in a recent fact sheet.

The total costs for the two sites, originally estimated at $4 billion, will now total $8 billion, DOD says. That will mean budgeting about $150 million annually for each of these sites, an ACWA spokeswoman says.

The yearly limits on funding the two sites are reflective of constraints on the Pentagon's budget and direction given by the Pentagon after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last April formally told Congress the United States would not meet the extended 2012 chemical weapons stockpile destruction deadline under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), of which the United States is a party, according to an ACWA spokeswoman. The military has been destroying chemical weapon stockpiles at six other sites across the country, but the DOD budget constraints have not prompted any revisions to these sites' schedules, according to a DOD spokesman.

"There are a lot of competing requirements on national defense," the ACWA spokeswoman says. Originally, DOD had pursued an aggressive schedule based on the treaty requirements, but after Rumsfeld announced the United States would miss the 2012 final deadline under the CWC, he directed the ACWA program to go back and make it more affordable, while trying to come as close to the 2012 deadline as possible, she says.

The United States' top delegate to the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international body that oversees implementation of the CWC, told the executive council last July that the U.S. government was fully committed to complete destruction as close to 2012 as feasible. "The U.S. commitment and its efforts to meet its chemical weapons obligations 'should be patently manifest,"' Ambassador Eric Javits told the council, referring to "government assurances offered 'at every level' as well as from a high rate of past expenditures and future destruction cost projections," according to a State Department information release.

But at least one environmentalist says the immediate reaction from the international community to the recent decision regarding ACWA will likely be negative. Other countries who are party to the CWC will likely argue the United States is failing to abide by its obligations and underfunding its programs, the source, with Global Green USA, says. The move by DOD comes shortly after the OPCW granted the United States the 2012 destruction deadline extension on the grounds that it would allow additional high-level inspections of its destruction facilities, reflecting the skepticism from other parties over whether the United States was making a credible effort to destroy its weapons quickly, according to the source.

This "makes it very difficult for Ambassador Javits to talk with a straight tongue" and ask other CWC parties to abide by the treaty when one of the largest possessor states is not upholding its obligations, the source says, contending the new stretched-out schedules relate to money, not technical challenges. There are 181 countries who are party to the CWC.

DOD's recent "certification confirms the Pentagon's intentions to force communities to sit on these weapons of mass destruction for an additional eight years and to significantly increase the disposal cost to taxpayers," Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG) said in a Jan. I I press release. CWWG released DOD briefing documents last November that revealed DOD's planned schedule extensions for the two sites, arguing it would counter DOD's stated objective of trying to come as close as possible to meeting the extended 2012 destruction deadline (Defense Environment Alert, Nov. 28, 2006, p8).

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), now the Senate minority leader, was critical of DOD's plans when released in November, saying at the time he was "disappointed" in DOD's "backsliding" once again on its commitments in Kentucky.

The certification sent to Congress is required under the Nunn-McCurdy law, which requires any major acquisition program that runs 25 percent above original certified cost estimates either to fold or be re-certified. Under the certification documents, DOD acquisition head Kenneth Krieg certified that the program "is essential to the national security," noting the chemical weapons stockpile has been identified as a potential terrorist target; that no alternative programs would exceed this program in terms of cost efficiencies and military capability; that the new cost estimates "are reasonable;" and that the program's management structure "is adequate to manage and control program acquisition unit cost or procurement unit cost," a Jan. 10 certification letter from Krieg says.

A related acquisition memo from Krieg calls for quarterly reviews to warn of any cost and schedule increases or greater technical risks that may arise. Among other actions, it also calls on the DOD environment office to "conduct periodic regulatory in-progress reviews to ensure regulatory issues stay off of the critical path." Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details.

The other stockpile sites in the United States undertaking chemical weapons destruction - many of which are using incineration as the destruction method - have not had their schedules altered due to the Pentagon's budget constraints, according to the DOD spokesman. All but two of these six sites, however, are expected to miss the 2012 deadline as well. The last of these sites scheduled to complete its destruction campaign is in Umatilla, OR, in 2017, according to the spokesman, who says these schedules assume no changes to technology or regulations.

"The Army remains committed to shortening those schedules but will not sacrifice or compromise safety to the workers or the public as we move towards completion," the spokesman says.

In related news, the ACWA program may see less funding than the administration had sought for the continued design and construction of facilities at the Kentucky and Colorado sites this fiscal year, if no change is made under the continuing resolution, which expires Feb. 15. Since the FY07 military construction bill did not pass Congress, the program's military construction budget would be funded under the continuing resolution. Generally, that reverts to either the lower of the two markups - which is $90 million under the House markup - or the previous year's appropriation, which was $51 million. The administration had sought nearly $131 million for the military construction portion of the program for FY07. The program's research and development budget of nearly $216 million for FY07, however, was passed by Congress under a separate funding bill.