Interim briefing on depot study cancelled
By Ryan Garrett/Register News Writer

A team studying the future of Blue Grass Army Depot's stockpile hoped to learn Monday if they are on track with the study during a briefing with a deputy assistant to the undersecretary of defense.

There was just one problem - the meeting didn't happen.

The meeting had originally been scheduled for last Friday, but was pushed to Monday because of scheduling conflicts.  A spokesperson for the Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), the agency in charge of storing and destroy the nation's chemical weapons stockpile, said in an e-mail that a makeup date will be scheduled.

The preliminary report was requested in a memo dated Jan. 10 by Patrick Wakefield, deputy assistant to the undersecretary of defense for chemical demilitarization and threat reduction.  The agency is still scheduled to present a full briefing March 21 to Michael Wynne, acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The public has mostly focused on the part of the study considering the transport of the more than 500 tons of weapons stored at Blue Grass to an incinerator in another state.  Along with transportation, however, CMA is studying several other options intended to meet an international treaty deadline of 2012 for destroying the nation’s entire chemical weapons stockpile, while facing budget cuts and cost overruns at other sites.

CMA is also considering possible revised technical approaches such as removing explosives from the munitions and potential updates to its policies and procedures to precisely define the actual point of chemical agent destruction, according to a CMA press release.

CMA officials previously stated that they hoped the interim briefing would give the assessment team a better idea of which methods to continue to pursue and which to toss by the wayside.

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