Weapons may be moved to
Utah
Proposal for destroying chemical
arms on site in Colorado is on hold
By Joe Bauman
Deseret Morning News
Like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, more indications
are piling up that chemical weapons stored in Colorado will be incinerated
in Utah.
Budget plans are on hold for building a chemical arms destruction facility
to destroy the 2,600 tons of mustard agent stored in Pueblo, Colo. At the
same time, the U.S. Army has said it is studying the possibility of moving
weapons.
The nearest stockpile where a destruction plant is operating is near Stockton
in Utah's Tooele County. If the Pueblo arms were moved, the obvious destination
would be the Army's incinerator there.
According to a statement posted at the Web site for the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction
Pilot Plant, "stage one construction" for the plant has been suspended. That
stage includes $50 million for site preparation such as roads, fencing, earthwork
and temporary buildings.
Funding requests for the overall chemical demilitarization project have been
cut by millions of dollars in the new federal budget.
Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget has branded the program "ineffective."
The Colorado congressional delegation wants the arms at Pueblo to be destroyed
there, as envisioned in the law setting up destruction of the arms, said
Nayyera Haq, spokeswoman for Rep. John T. Salazar, D-Colo. His district includes
Pueblo.
"It's illegal right now to transport any chemical weapons across state lines,
and to consider that or consider studying that is just not in the best interest
of homeland security," she said. That is especially
true "since these chemical weapons have been sitting there for years, deteriorating,"
she said.
One of Salazar's concerns is the estimated 1,000 jobs a destruction plant
would bring to Pueblo, Haq said. These would not materialize if the arms
were shipped to Utah.
No chemical destruction facility has been built at Pueblo, and Haq said no
money is designated for construction of one there in fiscal year 2006.
Money earmarked for the overall demilitarization project, which involves
stockpiles in eight states, is dropping.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White
House, the 2006 budget projection for chemical weapons demilitarization is
pegged at about $1.4 billion, down $48 million from the fiscal year 2005 estimate.
The 2006 budget would be $206 million less than actual expenditures during
2004.
OMB researchers officially labeled the program ineffective. Not completed
were these actions that the Department of Defense had undertaken, according
to OMB:
- Approval of a destruction
process and proceeding with planning for the chemical weapons stockpile at
Blue Grass, Ky., as well as working with "community groups at all sites to
ensure that safety concerns are met."
- Focusing on maintaining
the schedule and efficiency goals.
- Managing the program according
to milestones that the Department of Defense recently developed for each
site.
Chemical Weapons Working Group, an anti-incinerator organization based in
Berea, Ky., said Tuesday it believes more than $400 million in funding has
been stored by the DOD. The money was appropriated to construct facilities
to neutralize chemical weapons in Colorado and Kentucky, it added.
"The Pentagon is trying to conceal the ever-increasing cost of the chemical
demilitarization program, particularly at their incineration sites, by impounding
funds for neutralizing chemical agents in Colorado and Kentucky," Craig Williams,
director of the activist group, charged in an e-mail press release.
"It appears they intend to continue transferring these funds to disposal
programs at other sites where costs have soared."
Williams said the result will be greater risk to "certain communities" as
well as higher costs to dispose of the weapons in the long run. Also, he
predicted, the United States will miss treaty deadlines on destruction of
the weapons.
E-mail:
bau@desnews.com |
