136th Year... and still on the job!	Thursday January 26, 2006

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Plans are still on schedule to start site preparation work this summer for a weapons destruction plant at the Pueblo Chemical Depot.

The Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission heard a number of reports at its monthly meeting Wednesday night, mostly optimistic that work was continuing on schedule after more than a year of delays.

The Army has to destroy 2,611 tons of mustard agent contained in mortar rounds and artillery shells here by a 2012 treaty deadline.

Joe Nemec, project manager for Bechtel, the prime contractor, said that work on a new entrance to the Army base off of DOT Road is nearing completion. A fence along the road that will link the county road to the Transportation Technology Center to the weapons destruction site will be done by April and the road will be done by June. Work will start next month on the access control point where security guards will be stationed and that will be finished by Nov. 30.

Nemec said that site grading and stormwater system installation will get under way in August, underground utilities in September and several buildings, other than the main processing facility, in November.

Bechtel can't start working on the main building until the Defense Department finishes its review of a revised plan for the project later this year.

As of the end of 2005, Nemec said that Bechtel had spent $22.3 million on subcontracts, half of it with Pueblo companies. In response to a question from Commission Chairman John Klomp, Nemec said he did not know how many local people had been employed by those jobs but that he would see if he could get that from the subcontractors. He said that requests for proposals for this year's work should go out during the May through July period. Bill Pehlivanian, deputy program manager for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program, traveled to Pueblo from ACWA headquarters in Maryland and also delivered optimistic reports. The ACWA program has $53 million in fiscal 2006 funding to spend in Pueblo and at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, ACWA's other project. Both facilities will use a water neutralization method to destroy chemical weapons, unlike other bases around the country were incinerators are being used.

In addition to the $53 million, there is more than $90 million in carryover money from previous years unspent because of the delays. Pehlivanian said that it was significant that in addition to work by Colorado and Kentucky Congressional delegates to add $20 million to an original Defense Department budget request of $20 million this year, there is more flexibility in how the money can be spent than in previous budgets.

Pehlivanian said that the next milestone will be the President's 2007 budget request expected in February. "I feel very confident that we will get the money we need to increase the momentum," he said.

After that, the next big step will be the overall projection approved by the Pentagon for 2008 through the lifetime of the project. That will determine future funding requests.

Another project that will get underway this year is the Defense Access Road project. Greg Severance, Pueblo County public works director, said that design work will begin on that project in February so that work can get started as soon as the environmental assessments are approved. If everything goes as planned, work will start on the first phases in August, the widening of a portion of Colorado 47 and the extension of William White Boulevard to provide a new entrance to the city's Airport Industrial Park.

Commission member Ross Vincent asked if road work would be a problem when construction crews are trying to get into the chemical depot but Severance said that there will be two lanes open at all times. He also said that the county will wait until the heavy traffic subsides before starting resurfacing work.

The federal government is paying for most of the $18.6 million project as part of the chemical demilitarization project because access to the chemical depot was considered insufficient for all the traffic the project will generate.

In other news, commission member Irene Kornelly shared with the commission and the public word that Bechtel had dropped plans to remove explosives from the weapons and store the chemical-laden shells separately from the bursters and propellants they now have with them.

Instead, the company will wait to remove explosives until just before the weapons go into the processing plant. The commission had recommended that option, pointing out that it was safer to only handle the weapons once.