RICHMOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUSINESS EXCHANGE

April, 2005
Front Page
Chamber takes action on chemical weapons delay at Blue Grass Army Depot

If the President’s federal budget is passed as currently proposed, the Pentagon will cut funding for the disposal of 525 tons of chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Madison County, delaying the design and construction of a $2 billion disposal plant and ignoring an international treaty to dispose of all such weapons
in this country and the world by 2012.

Defense officials may slash funding at Blue Grass and Pueblo, Colo. to a combined $31 million for fiscal year 2006, well below the $105 million allocated in '05, which is needed to continue design and construction in '06. The Richmond/Madison County Chamber of Commerce has made this issue one of its six key performance areas for 2005, to do everything possible to lobby to restore funding and prevent transportation of chemical weapons. (see the Chamber's position statement on-line at <richmondchamber.com>).

"Anyone familiar with executing this sort of project could tell you that barely keeps the doors open," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, and co-chair of the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, along with County Judge Executive Kent Clark.  “We didn’t know whre the WMDs were in Iraq, but we know exactly where they are in Kentucky.”

Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, the contractor selected to design, build, systemize, test and operate the plant which would destroy these Weapons of Mass Destruction through SCWO, Super Critical Water Oxidation, is in jeopardy and will conceivably pull out of Madison County by October of 2005 if fundingis not restored before the budget is passed.  The project is currently at 50 percent completed in the design phase.

Madison County and Blue Grass region officials and business leaders are taking action, as well as the Kentucky Congressional Delegation, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Jim Bunning and Congressman Ben Chandler. The Richmond Chamber salutes the cities of Richmond and Berea, which along with Madison County have passed ordinances making it illegal to transport these WMDs within their boundaries, as the Pentagon has been studying the option of shipping them to other incineration sites in Alabama or Utah.

McConnell, Bunning and Chandler have co-sponsored legislation in their respective houses to prevent this chemical weapons transportation study from being funded and completed. .   

The Richmond/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board, Commerce Lexington and other regional partners, is organizing a grass roots lobbying effort and operation of correspondence with Pentagon officials and Congressional Leadership in the Armed Services and Defense Appropriations Committees in both houses. One D.C. fly-in organized by Commerce Lexington has already taken place.

"We have from now until September to lobby on this," said Executive Director Rob Rumpke. "Once we get into October the budget will pretty much be a done deal."
One of the strategies is to seek resolutions from the Blue Grass ADD and all of its governments, and position statements from regional Chambers of Commerce and other organizations, to be disseminated to the Pentagon and Congressional leadership. The Blue Grass ADD, representing city and county governments in 17 central Kentucky counties, passed its resolution on February 3.

The Richmond Chamber's position statement is posted on our website at <richmondchamber.com> for review. Members should feel free to use this wording in letters of support to our Congressional Delegation and directed at other members of leadership. Please copy the Richmond Chamber on any letters drafted for inclusion in packets to the Pentagon. For more information on these efforts contact: Rob Rumpke, Richmond/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, 859-623-1720.