Funds slashed for destroying chemical weapons in Madison

RICHMOND - Steep cuts in the proposed defense budget submitted to Congress yesterday could cause years of delay in construction of a chemical neutralization plant in Madison County.

The Pentagon agency responsible for the destruction of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County and in Pueblo, Colo., will receive $31 million in fiscal 2006. The two sites will share the money.

The agency was in line to get about $250 million. The bottom line for the depot: A cut of about $110 million.

The budget cut, though not a surprise, was unwelcome.

"It is irresponsible that the administration continues to spend billions of dollars in Iraq, but will not fulfill its obligation to the citizens of Kentucky," U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles, said in a statement.

Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell noted that this is the first step in a long budget process. He said he would use his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to make sure the weapons were destroyed safely and expeditiously.

The budget contains no money for construction of the Blue Grass and Pueblo plants until fiscal 2011. A treaty obligates the United States to destroy all of its chemical weapons by April 2012.

Last month, the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group released preliminary budget documents showing the Pentagon was planning to gut the program -- and that the Army had been asked to study shipping the depot's 523 tons of nerve and blister agent to one of the nation's four incinerator sites, instead of constructing the $2 billion neutralization plant near Richmond.

Craig Williams, the group's director, said local residents and elected officials would continue to fight "until we get adequate funding to move this program and eliminate these weapons of mass destruction from our communities."