136th Year... and still on the job!	Thursday June 30, 2005

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

For the second time, a Colorado-based citizens' group has told the Department of Defense how it wants to see weapons destruction done at the Pueblo Chemical Depot, a recommendation the group hopes will be carried out this time without any more delays or funding cuts.

On Wednesday night, the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens' Advisory Commission approved a conditioned endorsement of a revised plan being developed by Bechtel, the prime contractor, that will keep the lifetime cost of the job within the $1.7 billion cost cap set by the Defense Department.

The commission approved a cover letter and an accompanying report from the Design Options Working Group by an 8-0 vote. One board member, Tom Enrietta of the Plumbers and Pipefitters union, was absent but commission members took time to praise union members of the design options group for their help in putting the document together.

The recommendations will be sent today to Mike Parker, program manager of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives agency, which oversees weapons destruction using water neutralization methods at Pueblo and the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky. Parker, who also heads the Defense Department's Chemical Materials Agency, will go over Bechtel's revised plans and the Colorado commission's comments and prepare a report by July 22 for Undersecretary of Defense Kenneth Krieg. If Krieg approves the new plan, the ACWA officials can start putting together a request for the fiscal 2007 budget.

The $1.7 billion price tag is based on the original order from Congress that the water neutralization process used in Pueblo has to come in at a cost comparable to incineration, the government's original plan. Local officials, and senators from both Colorado and Kentucky point out that incinerators have already cost more than that and the number is baseless, but the Defense Department won't budge from that cap.

Bechtel's original proposal would have stayed within that price range and been on schedule had not one of Krieg's predecessors ordered that weapons destruction programs be accelerated to eliminate possible targets for terrorists. That change drove up the price to $2.6 billion.

The Pentagon froze Bechtel's design work last fall, which was already 60 percent complete on the accelerated plant it was told to build and then in March ordered new designs bringing the cost within the $1.7 billion cap.

The Colorado commission's group tracking that redesign has pointed to a number of potential problems with changes Bechtel was forced to make, mainly centering around plans to ship explosives and the treated mustard agent off site.

The group had no problems with Bechtel's reduction of the number of processing lines back to two from the three in the accelerated plan and gave a conditional blessing to a plan to ship the wooden packing materials, called dunnage, to a hazardous waste dump instead of processing them on site.

However, the group has warned that the plan to ship the propellants, bursters and fuses in the weapons to another site, and transfer out more than 7 million gallons of neutralized mustard agent in water, called agent hydrolysate, could cause problems.

The recommendations offer qualified support for the idea of shipping the explosives off site, warning that the overall plan for Pueblo should keep in mind the possibility that something unforeseen could prevent that and treatment would have to be done here, as planned in the design Bechtel had been working on until last year.

Bechtel officials say they believe that nearly all of the explosives are stable and uncontaminated by mustard agent, and any that are can be treated with portable equipment on site. Irene Kornelly, a member of the citizens' advisory commission, cautioned, however, "It's like when Secretary of Defense (Donald) Rumsfeld was talking about ‘unknown unknowns.’ If it turns out to be 20 percent, you'll have to treat it here."

She also said that before the Defense Department commits to off-site shipment, it has to be sure that not only the destination of the explosives will accept them, but the states through which they'll travel will agree to that.

The Defense Department needs to know that now "and not wait until the last minute," she said.

The concern of the local group is that if the program moves ahead with a plan based on off-site shipment and then the Defense Department runs into roadblocks, it will only mean more delays in getting the work done when on-site treatment would have been faster.

The local group could stand its best chance of winning the hydrolysate battle.

Bechtel's two biggest savings come from a smaller, two-line processing plant and off-site treatment of dunnage and explosives. On-site treatment of hydrolysate, using bacteria to break down the hazardous waste in a sewer plant, would add about $30 million to the overall price tag but still keep it under $1.7 billion. The commission's recommendation urges the Defense Department to keep that part of the work in Pueblo.