Future of depot chemical weapons project uncertain

By Ryan Garrett
Register News Writer

The future of 523 tons of chemical weapons stored at Blue Grass Army Depot is anyone’s guess.

President Bush’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 severely slashed funding for a planned neutralization project here and in Pueblo, Colo., and the Army is now studying the possible transport of the weapons to incinerators in other states.

The budget would cut funding at Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Depot to a combined $31 million for fiscal year 2006, well below the $105 million Blue Grass alone received last year.

The move would trim the staff of Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, the group that oversees the weapons destruction program at several sites around the country, slow the plant design to a crawl and put the permitting process on hold “because there is nothing to permit,” Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said during a press conference in January at Richmond City Hall.

“The bottom line is the Pentagon intends on gutting the program here,” Williams said.

The budget, presumably split between the two sites, does not increase above $34 million before fiscal year 2011, which would make compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention international treaty deadline of 2012 impossible.

The combined 3,134 tons at the two sites constitutes approximately 16 percent of the Army’s remaining chemical weapons stockpile, Williams said.

The Army and Pentagon have told the community for 20 years that the risk of storing the weapons is greater than the risk of disposal, Williams said.

For the bodies to reneg on those statements “is unconscionable, is unethical and certainly shirks the responsibility we depend on from the Pentagon,” he said.

According to a 2002 classified report, the Blue Grass Army Depot will have the highest terrorism risk among chemical weapons stockpiles in 2007.

“We feel that the Pentagon has abandoned us, has turned its back on tens of thousands of citizens who live in proximity of these things,” Williams said.

Study

But the community may not live in proximity of these things for long.

Soon after the Chemical Weapons Working Group released the Pentagon’s budget request, the Army announced it is considering moving its stockpile at the Blue Grass to another site.

A Jan. 10 memorandum signed by Patrick J. Wakefield, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense, directed the Army and the Program Manager for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives to develop alternative plans to meet the 2012 treaty deadline.

However, officials have acknowledged that the deadline is in jeopardy.

The Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), which is in charge of storing and eliminating the country’s aging chemical weapons and agent stockpiles, is conducting the study.

Not only is CMA looking at transporting the weapons, it is also considering possible revised technical approaches. The Army may decide to remove explosives from the munitions or to update its policies and procedures to precisely define the actual point of chemical agent destruction, according to a CMA press release.

Difficulty

Should the Army settle on transporting the weapons, it may be facing an uphill battle.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 1995 prohibits the transfer of chemical munitions across state lines.

Also, the Army’s 1988 Record of Decision for its Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program noted that any shipment “would be accompanied by handling risks, chance of transportation accidents, and threat of terrorist activities, which in turn increase public health and safety risks.”

“As we all know, a lot’s changed since then,” Williams said in January. “I think everyone would agree that the potential terrorist threat to the movement of weapons of mass destruction across this country has certainly increased in the post-9/11 era.”

Response

The city of Richmond has taken symbolic steps to prevent such a move, appproving an ordinance in February that would ban the transport of chemical weapons outside of the depot.

Mayor Connie Lawson said in January she is not sure the ordinance “has any teeth,” but hopes it will be supported by other communities.

“My greatest hope is that every city in America will adopt this ordinance and maybe slow this thing down,” she said.

Federal delegations from Kentucky and Colorado have also acted to stop any possible transfer.

“Ever since cuts to the chemical demilitarization program were first rumored, I have made clear that I think such cuts are misguided,” Sen. Mitch McConnell said in a press release last month. “And I will use my position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to ensure that the chemical agents are disposed of in a safe and expeditious manner.”

In January, Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar — a Colorado Republican and Democrat, respectively — introduced legislation that would prohibit the Department of Defense from studying the possibility of shipping chemical weapons across state lines.

In his floor statement, Allard called the department’s study “unnecessary and a waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.”

“I have already been told by Pentagon officials that the study is going to conclude that the transportation of chemical munitions across state lines is not practical,” Allard said.

The House is looking at similar legislation, introduced by Democratic Rep. John Salazar of Colorado and co-sponsored by Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District.

Rep. Salazar and Chandler recently toured Blue Grass to put a national spotlight on the issue.

“By cutting funding and wasting money on risky studies, the Department of Defense is jeopardizing the safety of this community,” Chandler, who visited the depot twice in February, said at a press confernce following his tour with Salazar.

Until the decision

For now, the community is waiting to see what happens.

Because of funding freezes, the depot can only maintain its pace for a planned chemical neutralization plant through April, according to Jim Fritsche, site project manager for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant.

“We’ve got 18 months left of design,” said Fritsche, the lead engineer responsible for managing the plant’s field office and overseeing the systems contract with Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass.

The Bechtel Parsons joint venture is the systems contractor hired to design, build, systemize, test, operate and close the estimated $2 billion plant to destroy the Blue Grass stockpile.

In February, a budget analysis by the Chemical Weapons Working Group revealed that the Pentagon has frozen about $400 million allocated by Congress for initial work on the project.

“There’s a lot of activity on trying to get these funds released,” said Craig Williams, the working group’s director. “If we don’t get some money restored, we’ve got an immediate and severe problem.”

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