The Army's Chemical Materials Agency announced Friday that it has put together the team that will consider whether to move chemical weapons from the Blue Grass Army Depot to an incinerator facility in another state.

The agency received a directive from the Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense on Jan. 14 directing it to develop alternatives to achieve the Chemical Weapons Convention deadline of April 2012 to destroy the nation's chemical agent stockpile.

The directive also instructed the agency, which is responsible for safely storing and eliminating the country's aging chemical weapons and agent stockpiles, to consider the safeguarding of the stockpile, should it be relocated.

The interim deadline for the technical assessment is Feb. 18, with a final reporting date of March 21 to Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense.

Kevin Duvall, acting director of the Chemical Materials Agency's cooperative threat reduction support directorate, is leading the assessment team, which includes top representatives from the CMA and Army.

It is too early to speculate what will be included in the assessment, CMA Director Michael A. Parker said in press release.

"We will meet the directive given us," Parker said. "I have complete faith in Kevin and his team. They have the expertise necessary to complete this mandate.

"Our mission at CMA is to safely store and dispose of these obsolete weapons while fulfilling the imperative of national defense," Parker said. "Safety of our workers, our communities and our environment will not be compromised."

But speculation here and abroad already has begun.

The Richmond City Commission passed the first reading of an ordinance Tuesday that would make it a crime to transport chemical weapons within city limits.

Under the proposed ordinance, which still faces second reading at the next commission meeting, violators could be fined up to $5,000, and their vehicles impounded at their point of origin.

Garrett Fowles, the city's legal counsel, said the ordinance would not be enforceable, but would still be "highly valuable as a symbolic object."

U.S. senators and representatives took up the fight Wednesday, introducing legislation that would prohibit the Department of Defense from studying the possibility of shipping chemical weapons across state lines.

Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning co-sponsored their body's legislation, while Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, signed on as a co-sponsor of the House legislation.

"One of the first meetings I had as a U.S. senator 20 years ago was about the aging chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky.," McConnell said in a statement released Wednesday.

"At the time, the Army was ignoring the concerns of the community and attempting to incinerate the weapons irrespective of the potential risk," McConnell said. "Not much has changed."

Ryan Garrett can be reached at rgarrett@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 234.