Editorial
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Friday February 27, 2004
TIME IS slipping away to save adequate funding this year for the chemical demilitarization at Pueblo Chemical Depot.
Local officials were warned recently that the demil program here could be put on hold indefinitely by cutting all funding at PCD and shifting it to incineration programs at other bases which have experienced cost overruns. Then the administration’s budget proposal which it sent to Congress gutted the anticipated $151.7 million for the next fiscal year by $146.8 million, leaving just $4.9 million.
County Commissioner John Klomp, who is the chairman of the Citizens Advisory Commission on the demil project, went to Washington seeking some assurance that the project would not be delayed indefinitely. Cryptically, Dale Klein, assistant secretary of defense on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, told Mr. Klomp that the work at PCD would continue "in a timely manner."
Six city councilmen will be in Washington next week for a conference. They should use the opportunity to visit directly with the Mr. Klein and press him for restoration of the funding.
Likewise, the three county commissioners ought to go to Washington and present a united front with the councilmen for this community. And all of them should recruit the support of Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Wayne Allard and Rep. Scott McInnis to ask why Pueblo is being chosen as the bridesmaid, particularly when contracts have been signed or will be soon. We have our suspicions, because the Pueblo base has a bad reputation within the Department of the Army’s institutional memory going back to the 1960s.
In any case, it’s crazy to put such a crimp on the program at hand. In a $2.4 trillion budget, $146.8 million is chicken feed. The funding needs to be put back on track.