138th Year... and still on the job!	Wednesday February 07, 2007

White House plan good for Pueblo Chemical Depot

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

If Congress provides the funding requested in the president's budget for fiscal 2008, there should be sufficient money to move forward with chemical demilitarization at the Pueblo Chemical Depot.

"We're actually looking pretty good for '08 with the numbers in the budget right now," said Gary Anderson, manager of the Pueblo project.

The budget request asks for about $140 million for Pueblo and $187 million for the Blue Grass Army Depot. Both projects are part of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program, using water to neutralize the deadly materials.

Of that money, $42 million would go to construction work, most of that spent in Pueblo, and $98 million in research, development and testing money, part of which will be spent on site and the rest at labs and with subcontractors developing the process that will be used to destroy the weapons.

The Pueblo Chemical Depot has a stockpile of 780,000 weapons holding a total of 2,611 tons of mustard agent. Blue Grass has both mustard and nerve agent weapons.

Construction work at the Pueblo installation has been under way for some time, with a new entry point, office building and electrical substation installed. Ground preparation is under way and work on the utility infrastructure is expected to be done this summer.

With the next fiscal year's funding, construction of the weapons destruction facility is expected to get under way. Anderson said that meetings will be held in a few weeks to go over how much construction can be accomplished with the new funding.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said that as a member of the budget and appropriations committees, he would try to increase those amounts. "Senator Allard will continue to work with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky throughout the appropriations process to increase funding for this project."

Rep. John Salazar said he would work to keep the funding on track for two reasons: "One is it increases our homeland security and makes our community safer. Two is that it is the fiscally responsible thing to do - the longer we take to complete this project, the more expensive it becomes."