News
Posted on
Sun, Oct. 29, 2006
McConnell pledges to protect funding for $2 billion weapons-disposal plant
By Beth Musgrave
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
RICHMOND - It's not always bad to be last.
Eight of the nine sites that store chemical weapons in the United States have completed or begun the destruction of the government's chemical weapons stash.
Yesterday, Richmond and the Blue Grass Army Depot held an open house at Keen Johnson Hall on Eastern Kentucky University's campus to celebrate the Oct. 2 ground-breaking for a potentially $2 billion chemical neutralization plant. It's the last ground-breaking for a plant of its kind. The weapons disposal plant, which will be overseen by the private company Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, will chemically dispose of more than 523 tons of lethal nerve and blister gas. Because of security constraints at the Blue Grass Army Depot, the public could not attend the ground-breaking.
Craig Williams, a longtime advocate for the safe destruction of chemical weapons, told about 200 people yesterday that the community stood to gain by being last.
"We've learned a lot of lessons," Williams said. And the community can learn a lot from other sites that have already begun the process, he said.
When Williams first started rallying against the Army's plans to build an incinerator at the depot, his son Dustin was 1 year old. He frequently carried his son on his hip to protests, Williams said.
"Now he's 23," Williams said yesterday. "He can probably carry me on his hip now."
Dustin Williams may be 30 before the chemical neutralization plant comes online, as it will largely depend on the U.S. Department of Defense and Congress.
If funding continues, those involved in the project hope neutralization of weapons will begin in mid-2012. The design for the neutralization process will be complete by 2007.
It will largely be up to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and the rest of Kentucky's congressional delegation to keep funding for the project on track. The project has been derailed several times in Washington, D.C.
The destruction of chemical weapons at the depot was one of the first issues to hit his desk when he was a rookie Republican senator in 1985, McConnell said yesterday.
At the urging of Williams and other community leaders, McConnell, through legislation, made the military look at alternatives to incinerating the weapons. McConnell also helped free millions of dollars that were earmarked for other projects. Because of competing interests within the Pentagon, such as now the escalating cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the funding is in constant jeopardy. McConnell pledged yesterday to make sure funding for the project continues.
"This is a classic example of how a county can affect their own fate," McConnell said of Madison County's efforts to halt Washington's plans.
Chemical weapons were first introduced in the trench warfare of World War I. The United States discontinued its program in 1968 and later as part of an international treaty ordered the destruction of its stockpile of chemical weapons.
In the 1980s, when the plans were announced, hundreds of Madison County residents were opposed to the incineration and called for a safer way to dispose of the weapons. After decades of fighting, in 2002 the Pentagon finally agreed to looking at alternative means of disposal.
Once the plant comes online, it could employs hundreds of people. The process will include neutralizing the caustic agents by using water hydrolysis. The resulting chemical compounds will then be broken down into basic elements and stored nearby.
Many yesterday thanked Williams, who heads an environmental group in Berea, for not giving up. Williams, 58, recently won a Goldman Environmental Prize, given to grassroots environmentalists, for his work. Williams later help start the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a national organization to demand the safe disposal of chemical weapons.
Madison County Judge-Executive Kent Clark, who was at first skeptical of Williams' assertions that there was a better way to rid the community of chemical weapons than incineration, says he's now glad that he agreed to that first meeting with Williams more than a decade ago.
"Craig never quit," Clark said. "He convinced all of us."
Reach Beth Musgrave at (859) 231-3205, 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3205, or bmusgrave@herald-leader.com.