138th Year... and still on the job!	Tuesday December 05, 2006

Chem-demil advisors to report on costs of shipping waste liquids

One commission member says the plan doesn't consider the cost of overcoming political and legal obstacles

By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

Two members of the Colorado Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission on Wednesday will present their analysis of the projected savings of shipping liquid waste from mustard agent neutralization.

The commission is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. at the Olde Towne Carriage House, 102 S. Victoria Ave., the former Cope Office Supply building.

Commission Chairman John Klomp and member Irene Kornelly were allowed to study the Defense Department's cost estimates, but it's unlikely any of that information will sway opponents of the plan.

Managers of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives programs, who oversee work at the Pueblo Chemical Depot and Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot, want to ship hydrolysate, the mostly water waste product left over from the neutralization of nerve and mustard agent, to other sites rather than treating it at the two locations as originally planned.

They say that off-site treatment will save $150 million, which if spent on a biotreatment plant at the two sites could slow down the projects.

Klomp and Kornelly were allowed to review the numbers because both have been granted clearances to see proprietary bidding information from contractors.

However, Klomp said that while the numbers appear to be correct, they don't anticipate the problems CAC members have predicted if hydrolysate is shipped across the country. "The thing that isn’Äôt there," he said, "is the litigation, political boundaries, cost of shipment." Commission members have pointed to the opposition in New Jersey where nerve agent hydrolysate from the Newport, Ind., plant was supposed to go, as an example of the political and legal problems the plan faces.

Bill Pehlivanian, deputy director of the ACWA program, will be at Wednesday night's meeting to discuss the time line for 2007 activities and Bechtel officials will give a wrap-up of this year's work at the Pueblo base.

The meeting is open to the public.