138th Year... and still on the job!	Wednesday November 22, 2006

Chem demil timetable criticized

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Environmental, social and labor leaders on Tuesday attacked the Pentagon's timetable for the destruction of chemical weapons at sites in Pueblo County and in Kentucky, saying ongoing delays and a drawn-out work schedule are putting communities at risk.

Members of Congress were briefed last week on the new schedule that will stretch as far as 2023, something that Pueblo officials were told early last month by the head of the program. In an October meeting with the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission in October, Mike Parker, head of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program, said that funding for water neutralization projects at the Pueblo Chemical Depot and the Blue Grass Army Depot outside Richmond, Ky., would be limited to $150 million a year for each until the work is done, presumably by 2023.

Craig Williams, director of the Berea, Ky.-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, said in a press conference Tuesday, "This is absolutely unacceptable. For the Pentagon to intentionally put tens of thousands of Americans at an unnecessary risk by continuing to store these weapons is reprehensible. Not only are they ignoring our international treaty obligations, they are undermining the military's fundamental obligation to protect U.S. citizens."

The Defense Department has claimed that because of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and other priorities, that it can't afford more than $300 million a year for the two projects.

Williams, quoting from National Research Council reports, said that the agency has stated, "The public risks calculated in all the risk assessments performed to date show that the risk associated with continued storage is larger than the risk associated with processing." He said that the report goes on to say, "Delays in disposal operations can only increase the already much larger cumulative risk of accidental releases from storage."

Ross Vincent

Puebloan Ross Vincent, who represents the Sierra Club on the local citizens' commission, added, "The new funding profile they have proposed defies common sense. It violates both national and international law, defies congressional directives, prolongs and increases unacceptable risks to our communities, and raids the national treasury. This is nuts."

Williams said the Pentagon's funding schedule also contradicts its own assurances to Congress. He pointed out that in April 2006, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld notified Congress that the extended Chemical Weapons Treaty disposal deadline of 2012 would not be met but he assured lawmakers that the Defense Department would "continue requesting resources needed to complete destruction as close to April 2012 as practicable."

Later this year, as part of the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill, both the House and Senate included language that stated, "Destroying existing chemical weapons is a homeland security imperative and an arms control priority and is required by U.S. law."

Critics have repeatedly pointed out that delaying the project only will add to the cost to taxpayers. One cause of that is the need to pay annual fixed costs over a longer period of time. In the case of the Blue Grass stockpile, he said, the operational time of the neutralization plant has stretched to 6 years from 2 years.

"It's our understanding that the new budget plan would only allow the Kentucky facility to run four days a week instead of the desired seven days per week," said Williams.

"This is preposterous. Shutting down the plant three days each week while still maintaining management payrolls, security costs and other expenses is absurd. If there were ever an example of 'penny-wise, pound-foolish,' this is it!" According to the documents, he said, extending the schedules at both sites would add about $3.3 billion to the costs.

Williams said that the same conclusion could be extrapolated from the Pueblo schedule, which has stretched to 5 years from three.

Vincent, a chemical engineer, said that most chemical treatment facilities, including this one, are designed for continuous operation. "The risk of accidents usually goes up during startups and shutdowns," he said. "The easiest way to deal with budget shortfalls is to hire and train fewer people and have them work fewer shifts. We may be looking at either or both of these strategies here and both are highly undesirable."

Williams said that his group would continue to put pressure on the Pentagon. "We will work harder than ever with each and every member of Congress to see that enough funds are available to expeditiously build and then fully operate these disposal facilities," he said. "We know we can count on the Kentucky and Colorado delegations, but we can't stop there. We need the support of the entire Congress to make sure our own WMDs don't turn out to be the next 9/11."

The strongest supporters of expediting the programs at the two locations have been Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., now Senate majority leader, and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who still has two more years in his current term, along with majority party members Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar, both from Colorado.

Local groups joined Williams in decrying the Pentagon's plans.

Terry Hart, chairman of Better Pueblo, said, "The more we learn, the worse it gets. It's becoming increasingly clear that this new approach will violate both U.S. and international law, defy congressional directives, prolong and increase unnecessary risks to workers and the public, and produce yet another raid on the taxpayers' pocketbook."

Neal Hall, business manager of the Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council, added, "This is wrong. It's just plain wrong. Pueblo's years of service to the nation in housing and protecting these weapons seem to count for nothing at the Pentagon these days. The continuing attempts to outsource these jobs are a travesty for all of Pueblo's working families."

Larry Howe-Kerr, with the Social Justice Office of the Diocese of Pueblo, said the Pentagon's credibility and integrity were being jeopardized after several years of cooperating with the community.

"It was a model of how communities and government should work together to do the right thing," he said. "All shared in the success. Now they appear to be trying to undo those remarkable achievements."