136th Year... and still on the job!	Tuesday June 21, 2005

State tells Army to submit plan for weapons

Colorado's health department has given the Army 30 days to come up with a plan for dealing with 2,800 tons of mustard agent weapon scheduled for destruction at the Pueblo Chemical Depot.

The state health department had held off on taking action against the Army for not complying with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, but the Defense Department's delays in destroying the weapons being stored at the Pueblo depot has prompted a change in policy.

Lt. Col. John Riley, who took command of the base last week, found waiting for him a letter from Gary W. Baughman, division director of the Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, giving the Army a month to come up with a plan of action for the mustard agent.

The letter points out that the federal government's plan to destroy the weapons under an international treaty banning chemical stockpiles qualifies the weapons as a "hazardous waste" and subject to state laws.

The state health department, as designee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has jurisdiction over the facility and similar moves have been taken in other states where the Army has stockpiles of chemical weapons due to be destroyed.

A plan to destroy the weapons through water neutralization has received permits in what many see as a model for cooperation between environmental agencies and the Defense Department, but Baughman's letter points to delays in the destruction program.

It states, "To our knowledge, the recent actions taken by the DoD to halt the engineering design for (the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant) have been carried out without justification or consideration of the extended duration for weapons storage. The Division believes that DoD's actions rise serious doubts about it's commitment to the timely destruction of the Pueblo chemical weapons stockpile."