Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 17, No. 10

May 12, 2009

AS EXPECTED, DOD FY10 BUDGET REQUEST BOOSTS ACWA FUNDING

As expected, the Defense Department's Fiscal Year 2010 budget request includes a significant boost of funding to speed destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles at the last two sites scheduled to finish destruction, according to activists closely following the budget.

The funding boost is reflected in a budget request the Defense Department released May 7, the activists say. Under it, the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program would receive $550.4 million next year, over $200 million more than the $300.4 million it was projected to receive, according to a May 6 news release from the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a citizens' coalition that has long tracked the chemical weapons destruction program.

The increase fits with a private briefing ACWA made to congressional staff, outlining a plan to increase funding for ACWA by more than $200 million over the next six years in an effort to come closer to meeting a congressional deadline for destroying all the country's stockpiled chemical weapons (Defense Environment Alert, April 28).

Observers of the program say the FYI 0 funding boost will aid in accelerating the destruction plans by a few years at the two ACWA sites. The existing schedule has the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, CO, finishing destruction in 2020, while the Blue Grass Army Depot in Lexington, KY, is not slated to complete destruction until 2023, six years after a congressional mandate and 11 years after an international treaty deadline.

In a budget document released by DOD last week, DOD says the goal now is to have 90 percent of U.S. chemical weapons destroyed by 2012 the date set by the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty the United States is a party to. And the FYI 0 budget funds construction efforts at ACWA sites "in order to complete destruction of the remaining 10% of the U.S. chemical stockpile as close to 2017 as possible," in accordance with defense law, the budget document says. Congress in fiscal year 2008 defense law called for DOD to meet a destruction deadline of 2017.

Chemical weapons at Blue Grass and Pueblo are being neutralized under the ACWA program, which launched at a later date than the program governing the rest of the stockpile, most of which is being incinerated. ACWA program officials have been frustrated over the lack of funding for the program in order to meet the 2017 congressional mandate, one informed source has said. Over the history of the ACWA program, DOD has requested a budget for ACWA that drastically dipped and then rebounded somewhat, as its level of priority fluctuated.

Activists say with the funding boost, "a more vigorous effort" can now be made to complete destruction of the weapons, the CWWG news release says.

"Once the acceleration options are implemented, I expect even more time can be cut from the schedule to bring it into compliance with the 2017 Congressional deadline," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a long-time proponent of funding for ACWA, says in the CWWG news release. Others say the additional funding will accelerate the existing completion dates at the two sites by three years.

At press time, the Defense Department was poised this week to release to Congress and journalists a report assessing DOD's options for accelerating destruction of the remaining chemical weapons stockpile.

Overall, the FYI 0 budget request for DOD's chemical demilitarization program is $1.71 billion -- which includes $1.15 billion for operation and maintenance, $401.27 million for research and development, $12.69 million for military construction.