138th Year... and still on the job!	Saturday September 30, 2006

Congress OKs '07 funding for chem demil projects

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Legislation that will provide money for next year's work on the chemical weapons destruction program here has been sent to the White House for the president's signature.

The fiscal 2007 Defense Appropriations Bill includes $216 million for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program, which will destroy weapons stockpiled at the Pueblo Chemical Depot and the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

Both programs will use a water-neutralization method to break down the deadly chemicals: mustard agent in the Pueblo weapons and mustard and nerve agent in Kentucky.

The Pueblo stockpile includes 780,000 artillery shells and mortar rounds that will be destroyed.

The original House version of the bill had cut $40 million out of the program, which would have severely set back work at both locations. But the Senate version with the full amount was the one approved.

Most of the money will be used by Bechtel and other subcontractors to design and develop equipment at the two sites.

Another military construction bill that will fund building of the demilitarization facility here next year remains in a Senate committee.

In addition to the funding for chemical demilitarization, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said that $20 million was included in the defense bill for buffer zone projects at bases that include Fort Carson. Another $8 million will go to Schriever AFB in Colorado Springs and $1.9 million to the Northern Command.

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., reported that a number of Colorado contractors will benefit from the defense bill, including:

$1.65 million for the development of a Respiratory Biodefense Initiative at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.

$2 million for the development of copper, lightweight induction motors for the military to be carried out by Vforge in Lakewood.

$1.1 million for the Deployable Structures Experiment by Microsat in Littleton.

$1.4 million for Special Operations Command to develop an air-dropped sensor needed for clandestine missions to be developed by ADA Technologies in Littleton.

$1 million for the Medical Image Database Holographic Archiving Library System that will go in part to Sun Microsystems in Louisville and InPhase Technologies in Longmont.

$2 million goes for Combat Support Hospital tents, to be produced by Alaska Structures in Delta.

$1.1 million will go for Polyimide Macro-electromechanical Systems from Ball Aerospace in Boulder and Jefferson Counties.