136th Year... and still on the job!	Saturday May 14, 2005

Pentagon officials said this week they may be able to lower the price of the chemical demilitarization project at the Pueblo Chemical Depot by using recycled parts from a similar system that has finished its work at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

John Klomp, chairman of Pueblo's Citizen Advisory Commission, met with Defense Department officials in Cincinnati this week at the National Environmental Forum. Klomp said one topic discussed was the future of the water-based neutralization system that has finished work at the Maryland site. A similar system has been planned for the Pueblo depot.

"One of the questions we wanted to ask was whether any of the neutralization system from Aberdeen could be reused here in Pueblo," Klomp said Friday. "The answer was that was a possibility and it would certainly lower the final cost of the project."

Currently, the Defense Department estimates the cost of the Pueblo neutralization system at $1.7 billion, he said. Pentagon officials are looking for ways to lower the cost of the Pueblo system, which will be used to destroy mustard agent weapons stored at the depot.

Klomp said the local project appears to be moving forward again, now that Congress has passed a federal budget bill that requires the Defense Department to spent $372 million on the Pueblo depot system, as well as a similar project at Blue Grass Depot Activity in Kentucky.

Pentagon officials said last week they would like to shift oversight of the Pueblo and Kentucky projects - which are part of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program - to the Army. That move has raised some concerns with Colorado lawmakers and Pueblo officials because the Army has advocated building a weapons incinerator at the Pueblo depot in the past.

"If the program ends up under the oversight of those people in the Army who have wanted to build an incinerator in the past, then it could be a problem for us," Klomp said.

Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., sent Pentagon officials a letter on Thursday asking for a detailed explanation of the proposed transfer who would provide oversight of the Pueblo project. When Congress established the alternative control program, it specifically put the Defense Department in charge of the program, rather than the Army.

"Given the (budget) legislation that Congress passed this month, I think we're in a pretty strong position to move forward now," Klomp said. "But we will have to watch the process carefully in the future."