RICHMOND - Budget cuts at Blue Grass Army Depot's sister site in Pueblo, Colo., could delay construction of a plant here to destroy the depot's chemical weapons, members of a Madison County advisory group were told yesterday.

Work on the plant will start with creation of an entrance to the depot on U.S. 52 and an access road to the building where the weapons will be chemically neutralized. The road construction is scheduled to start next January, with work on the main building to begin by September 2005.

The tentative timetable calls for the 523 tons of chemical agent to be destroyed by March 2012, just a month before a deadline set by an international treaty.

But Chris Midgett, project manager for contractor Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, said work could essentially be shut down for a year at Pueblo if its budget is cut from $151.7 million to $4.9 million for the next fiscal year, as proposed by President Bush. The two sites will share some designs and technology.

Yesterday, the 25-member Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board met for the second time. Board members grappled with how to plan for the $2 billion facility, which will employ 1,000 workers at its peak and 700 when construction is completed.

The group addressed its first technical issue yesterday. Members did not object to plans to re-use the stainless steel units that housed charcoal air filters at Johnson Atoll, a chemical-weapons site where the destruction process is complete.

Using refurbished filters at the depot would save $5 million, the board was told.