136th Year... and still on the job!	Thursday June 23, 2005

Get with it

THE FOUR U.S. senators from Colorado and Kentucky want the Army to get off the dime and proceed with chemical weapons demilitarization at Pueblo Chemical Depot and the Blue Grass Army Depot.

In order to expedite the process, the lawmakers are asking the new undersecretary of defense in charge of the project to lift what they say are unreasonable spending caps on programs in both states. Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Kentucky Republicans Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning expressed their stance to Kenneth J. Krieg, the new undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The Defense Department has established cost caps of $1.7 billion at PCD and $2 billion at Blue Grass. Those caps have caused the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives agency to redesign the operations to meet the price restrictions.

The cost caps were set by Mr. Krieg's department before he took over, based on what Pentagon officials said were comparable costs of incinerators, which originally were to be used at the two depots. When Congress sided with local groups opposing incineration and authorized the use of water neutralization at Pueblo and Blue Grass, the law stated that the alternative method would have to carry costs comparable to incineration but also offer the same safety and schedule.

However, the senators maintain that the law never called for an exact price tag. They say the order to keep costs at $1.7 billion and $2 billion has hamstrung the programs, is jeopardizing safety and is needlessly stringing out the projects.

Their letter echoed earlier sentiments expressed by Sen. Allard about how the matter has been handled, charging that “the administration of this program at the Office of the Secretary of Defense-level has been fraught with neglect and mismanagement from the beginning.” Additionally, Sen. Allard said, “DOD is latching onto an unnecessary cost estimate that was prepared before any design work had started on the Pueblo project. This put the cart way ahead of the horse.”

He went on to say that the “enormous cost of this scheduled delay, and the cost of redesigning the demilitarization facility, were not included as part of the original cost estimate. Of course, any calculation of cost made before the delay is going to be inaccurate.”

The senators are not the only ones wanting to get the process underway. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has issued a directive to the Army giving it a month to come up with a plan of action for the mustard agent.

The state agency says that, as a designee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it has jurisdiction over the facility. It called delays in coming to a final design of the demilitarization process at PCD as being without justification or consideration of the extended time the aging weapons are stored there.

While we would like to see a cost-certain, we know from experience the government almost never operates that way. So we have to support the Colorado and Kentucky senators in their call for the Army to get with the program and destroy these weapons expeditiously.