136th Year... and
still on the
job!
Sunday September 11,
2005
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136th Year... and
still on the
job!
|
Sunday September 11,
2005
|
As the Pentagon tries to dispose of its chemical weapons stockpiles, it's hearing the same thing from communities around the country: Don't ship out hydrolysate.
The liquid left over from the water neutralization of chemical agents is considered a hazardous waste and, increasingly, states do not want it shipped across their boundaries.
That was what the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Committee said when it signed off earlier this year on a revised plan to destroy the Pueblo Chemical Depot's 2,611 tons of mustard agent.
Bechtel, the prime contractor, was told to come up with a cheaper plan than the one it developed when the Defense Department wanted the program accelerated. Its new plan called for only water neutralization here with explosives shipped out for disposal elsewhere and the hydrolysate also be shipped out in tankers.
The CAC members pointed out that opposition was growing in other areas to shipping hydrolysate and that it would not be that much more expensive to break it down here with biotreatment, in a small sewer plant that would allow the water to be recycled back to the neutralization facility.
Otherwise, it would mean shipping out 26,000 gallons of hydrolysate a day during the demilitarization process.
John Klomp, chairman of the CAC, said he thinks the director of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative agency overseeing the program agrees and will try to convince the Defense Department that biotreatment is the way to go.
"We know Mike Parker has supported our recommendation to keep the hydrolysate on site," Klomp said.
Even so, Klomp said that Bechtel has included a transport facility in its design that could be built if the Pentagon decides to go ahead with shipping it out.
However, he added, "I don't think that anybody that's politically astute can believe that's going to happen."