for more information contact: Craig Williams (859)986-7565

for immediate release: Thursday, August 16, 2001

INCINERATION OPPONENTS CALL ON KENTUCKY ELECTED OFFICIALS TO "CLEAN UP" THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS DEMILITARIZATION OFFICE

In a strongly-worded letter to Kentucky's federal, state and local elected officials, the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG) continued its efforts to bring accountability to the U.S. Army's Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program.

The correspondence centered around a presentation made by a representative of the Army's Office of the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization (PMCD) Monday night in Richmond at a Citizens Advisory Commission (CAC) meeting.

In the letter addressed to Senator Mitch McConnell and copied to other elected officials from Senator Bunning to the Berea City Council, CWWG's director, Craig Williams cited numerous misrepresentations made by the PMCD representative concerning the main topic of the meeting - disposal schedules. PMCD began it's presentation by putting up a chart of a projected incineration schedule for Kentucky which was claimed by PMCD to, "contain the most current schedule information, including all the latest operational data from JACADS and TOCDF."

Williams pointed out that the chart presented at the meeting, was "inaccurate and misleading in the following ways":

• 18 months were shown for disposal of the Blue Grass stockpile using incineration (internal army documents show almost 70 months). When PMCD was questioned, they admitted the schedule was actually one developed in 1995 and did not contain any operational data from either JACADS or TOCDF.
• 12 months were shown for permit issuance from the State of Kentucky. A representative from Kentucky's Department of Natural Resources present at the meeting stated that 24 months was the very least amount of time needed for permit approval for any technology. PMCD said that Maryland and Indiana received their permits in less than 2 years, failing to mention these sites are going with non-incineration technologies. A citizen made that clarification. PMCD then claimed they received their incineration permit in Alabama in 3 years. When confronted with actual permit data, PMCD agreed that no CW incinerator had received a permit in less than 7 years from submission of the application.
  
• 26 months were shown for construction. Upon questioning, PMCD admitted it would probably be more like 34 months.
  
• 18 months were shown for systemization. PMCD later admitted that no site had done it in less than 24 months and that TOCDF took 36 months to systematize."

"The cumulative time difference between PMCD's projected schedule that was presented by PMCD at the beginning of the meeting and the time lines they had to admit to when confronted with the facts by members of the audience was more than 6 years! So instead of the 7 year schedule as represented on the PMCD chart, it is actually closer to 14 years to complete the job," the letter said.

The letter continued, "Had not I and other folks with knowledge of the issue been there to catch these intentional misrepresentations, the citizens present and more importantly, the media, would have taken PMCD's information as accurate and reported a completely fictional picture of the time needed for destruction of our stockpile using incineration."

A Pentagon representative with the Alternative Technologies Program also presented information on schedule, to which the letter said, " In contrast, the ACWA representative was straightforward and honest in his presentation. They stated that based on the best information available they felt 2008 - 2009 was a realistic time frame for destruction of the Kentucky stockpile using alternate technologies. He made no promises and presented no mythical charts with misleading data."

Williams' letter thanked McConnell for his ongoing efforts to rectify this program and asked that he continue to try and force accountability and oversight from his position in the Senate. The letter said that in spite of McConnell's focus and determination in calling for accountability, "PMCD marched into Kentucky last night and purposefully and intentionally presented false and misleading information to the Kentucky Governors' Commission, the media and the public."

"What amazes me the most about all this," said Williams, "is that even after the thrashing PMCD took at the Senate Hearings in April surrounding this very dimension of the issue (schedule), they march right back into Kentucky a few months later with the same information and seem to have no conscience about it. They attacked the citizens' Senate testimony, accusing us of misrepresenting schedule, then, shortly after a Congressional Review found us to be accurate, they go right back to business as usual. I've never seen such arrogance anywhere. It's well past time to clean this program up."

Copies of the letter referenced can be obtained from the CWWG office or web site.

CWWG Home Page

Contact us: Chemical Weapons Working Group Kentucky Environmental Foundation P.O. Box 467 Berea, KY 40403 phone: 859-986-7565 fax: 859-986-2695 For comments about this WWW page contact Lois Kleffman.