Wednesday February 25, 2004

Project funding, a project time schedule, environmental permitting and the always-important question of when jobs will be available were just a few of the topics of discussion at a meeting of the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board meeting Monday at Eastern Kentucky University.

The funding issue - brought to light recently by the president's proposed budget which cuts funding for a similar chemical weapons site at Pueblo, Colo. - seemed to be the main topic of concern with those attending.

The facility in Pueblo is currently in the process of demilitarizing chemical weapons much like Blue Grass, and is about 9 months ahead of the Richmond facility in the process.

"It is possible, especially if the president's budget stands as it is today, that it will literally shut Pueblo down for a year, which will affect us," said Chris Midgett, project manager for Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass.

Those impacts would be in the form of information sharing between Pueblo and Richmond. As Pueblo continues through their process, Bechtel Parsons - the contractor doing the demilitarization work at both sites - plan to use knowledge and designs from the Pueblo facility at the Blue Grass facility.

If it stands, the president's budget would have "little affect" on Blue Grass in 2005, Midgett said, which would mean funds would be available to start the initial groundwork at Blue Grass. If there is a problem with funding, Blue Grass wouldn't see it until 2006, he said.

Midgett said construction of an access road to the Blue Grass Chemical Activity Destruction Pilot Plant is expected to begin by January 2005.

That road will run from Ky. 52 to the demilitarization facility, which Midgett said will be about 1.5 miles from Ky. 52.

A new guard facility will be built at the entrance, as will a 40,000 square-foot administration building where much of the staff will be housed and a large parking lot.

The initial business opportunities for work at the depot will be for a subcontractors to work on this access road.

Midgett said four to six subcontracts will be needed do work such as land clearing, grading, asphalt, fencing, lighting and other similar projects. Midgett said proposals for these bids are expected to go out between August and December 2004.

Construction on the BGCAPP facility is expected to begin by September 2005, Midgett said.

Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass has hired a supplier advocate to handle business opportunities such as these for outside suppliers. Devon Farnstrom can be reached at 624-6201 or dkfarnst@bechtel.com for questions about the process.

The first of several workshops for businesses who need help signing up to bid for jobs will be March 19, Midgett said.

In other information provided to the board by Midgett as a project update, the Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass Team currently consists of 134 personnel working on the project. Of those, 15 are based in Richmond, with the remainder in Pasadena and San Diego.

Midgett said the Design Build Plan for the destruction facility was submitted and approved ahead of time, and that as of the end of January, the design for the demilitarization facility is 10 percent complete.

Midgett also reminded the group that the outreach office has been relocated with the Bechtel Parsons team on Highland Park Drive.

Bill Pehlivanian, deputy program manager for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA), said his organization is about six to eight weeks away from hiring a site manager for the demilitarization plant, a position he referred to as "critical."

The group also told ACWA officials that they have no objections to the purchase 10 refurbished filter-housing units previously used at Johnson Atoll and move them to Blue Grass for future use.

Purchasing these previously used units can potentially save the project $5 million, according to Jim Richmond, Blue Grass lead for ACWA, who presented information to the group about this issue.

The filter-housing units have been decontaminated according to Army regulations, and have also been examined by officials from Bechtel Parson, Richmond said.

Approval of this issue was not required for ACWA to move forward with the purchase, but Richmond said he wanted to present the issue to the group as part of their commitment to be open on the entire demilitarization process.

The group also announced they would continue to use the Keystone Group as a meeting facilitator instead of hiring a local facilitator to do that work.

The group is scheduled to meet again in May or June. All meetings of the CDCAB are open to the public.

Jodi Whitaker can be reached at jwhitaker@richmondregister.com.