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By Peter Mathews

CENTRAL KENTUCKY BUREAU

RICHMOND - Chemical weapons destruction plants being planned in Madison County and Pueblo, Colo., could share $300 million or more in the next federal budget, according to preliminary Pentagon figures.

What's more, similar funding levels are proposed for the next five years, said Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group.

Williams spoke at a meeting yesterday of the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, which he co-chairs.

The numbers are a long way from being final, but they represent a huge boost over the current budget -- $33 million for the two plants this year, with similar figures proposed for the next few years. No money is included for construction of the Kentucky plant until fiscal year 2011.

Under an international treaty, the United States has until April 2012 to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile. That includes the 523 tons of nerve and blister agent stored at Blue Grass Army Depot, where the neutralization plant will be built.

But funding problems have delayed the project for years, raising doubts that the deadline can be met.

Those money problems prompted the Pentagon to order a redesign of the plant. It is smaller and contains less equipment than the one proposed earlier.

The redesign is expected to be 60 percent complete by May and finished by December 2007.

Meanwhile, Jim Fritsche, site project manager for the plant, told the board that officials have approved a change in how rockets will be dismantled at the facility.

The rockets will now be sheared after their motors and warheads have been separated.

The change was originally studied as a cost-cutting measure, but fires at weapons disposal sites in Oregon and Arkansas prompted consideration of the change as a safety measure as well.