136th Year... and still on the job!	Sunday April 25, 2004

Powering up

CHIEFTAIN PHOTOS/CHRIS McLEAN This 20-megawatt transformer will help bring power to the construction site when work on the chemical demilitarization facility begins.

Chem demil process taps into local energy supply

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

The political wrangling over next year's funding for weapons destruction at the Pueblo Chemical Depot hasn't slowed this year's schedule of work.

Over the past couple of weeks, crews working under a contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been installing a connection to Aquila that will provide power for construction work expected to get under way later this year.

Duncan Juergenson is project engineer.

An electric substation is being built just east of "G Block," the secure group of igloos where 2,600 tons of mustard agent is stored in explosive rounds, all of it scheduled to be destroyed as part of an international treaty.

The plant where the weapons will be destroyed will use state-of-the-art robotics to dismantle the deadly shells and a water-based, environmentally friendly chemical process to break down their contents into harmless substances.

It will be located in the northeastern area of the Pueblo Chemical Depot, close to the earth-covered igloos where the weapons are stored. A sprawling metal office building has already been erected and is slowly filling up with about 35 employees of Bechtel, along with staff from its subcontractors and Army employees overseeing the project.

Power currently is coming from the chemical depot's own system, but will be switched to Aquila once the substation is finished and lines are strung to the Aquila power line that runs along the east side of the depot to feed the Transportation Technology Center.

Once the transformer is in place, crews from Aquila will use ropes to pull lines to the site. The power will come off a system used for the Transportation Technology Center Inc. to the north.

Once the chemical demilitarization project gets under way, it is expected to be Aquila's biggest customer, according to Milt VanDerwalker, the power company's principal account executive.

While the substation being built now for the construction process is designed for only 20 megawatts, there's room for more transformers, VanDerwalker said, which will be needed to power the plant.

While the numbers have been changing over the past few years that he's been negotiating with the Army and Bechtel, it appears now that the power requirement will be 45 megawatts.

The Holcim cement plant outside Florence is Aquila's biggest customer now at 35 megawatts.

All of that could change again with the Defense Department's order to Bechtel to revise the project plan to reduce costs, but there's no doubt the facility will be a big power user.

VanDerwalker said that Aquila won't have a problem getting the power but will probably have to improve the transmission system to handle the higher load.

The lines to the new substation come off of the ones that feed the TTCI to the north, a customer whose power needs vary from a standard 2 megawatts to as much as 10 when electric-powered trains are being tested.

Crews working for Wilson Construction install a ground grid to channel away static electricity.

The chemical demilitarization plant will be a consistent user, however, and VanDerwalker said it could be an around-the-clock operation.

"There are some major things that are going to have to happen to feed that load," he said, explaining that it will take redundant systems to keep it going in emergencies.