136th Year... and still on the job!	Sunday April 17, 2005

Pueblo deserves better

EDITORIAL
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A HIGH-ranking Defense Department official as much as thumbed his nose at a Senate committee last week when he testified about the mustard gas stockpile at Pueblo Chemical Depot.

Michael Wynne told the senators that incinerating or moving the stockpile remain options, even though the decision to forego incineration and use a water neutralization process - here at Pueblo Chemical Depot - was made several years ago. This was the first time that a high-ranking Pentagon official suggested the Army might go back on its pledge to destroy the weapons here.

The Army’s original plan was to incinerate the weapons at the depot, but environmentalists were able to marshal enough support locally and in Congress to opt instead for the neutralization process. But in alluding to incineration during his committee testimony, Mr. Wynne said, “Scrubbers are getting better,” referring to the so-called scrubbers that clean stack emissions.

Furthermore, Mr. Wynne said, “The needs of the community may not meet the national interest.” In other words, even though Pueblo needs the jobs associated with construction and operation of a demilitarization plant, the Army may opt to take the weapons elsewhere.

Wynne’s words and attitude frustrated and, it appeared, angered Colorado’s two senators. Republican Wayne Allard and Democrat Ken Salazar both have supported doing the work here.

When word first came out that the Army was studying “alternatives” to the current stated plan, Sen. Allard said he believes cost overruns at other sites where chemical weapons are being destroyed have prompted the Army to see if it can somehow punt in Pueblo. The Army also has complained that the cost of doing the work here has ballooned from $1.5 billion just a couple of years ago to an estimated $2.6 billion.

This is a Catch-22, because the Army instructed the primary contractor, Bechtel, to speed up the demilitarization. With those instructions, Bechtel redesigned the plant to increase it from two lines of operation to three.

But no, the Army decided that cost too much. Franz Kafka couldn’t have written a more bizarre script.

In the days after Mr. Wynne’s testimony, Sen. Allard took to the Senate floor to argue the case for funding the work at Pueblo. The next day, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made a similar plea for the chemical depot in his state where demilitarization similarly has been stalled.

Sen. Allard took off the gloves for his speech:

“Since the program’s inception, the Department of Defense’s management has been dismal and ineffective. The program is behind schedule and over budget.

“In 1996, Congress was told the program was going to be completed before 2007 at a cost of approximately $2.1 billion. And now, we are told the program could possibly cost as much as $37 billion and be completed as late as 2030.”

Sen. Allard added, “Without telling Congress, the state of Colorado or the people in Pueblo, the department unilaterally decided to cease all design work and assign the project in Pueblo to caretaker status for the next six years.”

Six years? That’s unacceptable.

The Army - properly - conducts routine war games to keep its troops well-trained. Now it is playing another kind of game with Pueblo - and that game is unacceptable.

A community that has produced four Medal of Honor recipients deserves better from the Department of Defense.