Pentagon reviews pricey weapon disposal program

Reuters

Tuesday, December 5, 2006; 7:20 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is reviewing a program to dispose of chemical weapons stockpiled in Colorado and Kentucky whose costs have soared over 72 percent to $7.96 billion, U.S. defense officials said on Tuesday.

Under federal law, that means the program must be canceled unless Pentagon officials certify the program is required for national security reasons and meets other criteria.

One defense official, who asked not to be named, said the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program was unlikely to be canceled since it was deemed "essential to national security" and there were no viable alternatives.

The Colorado program is run by the private California-based company Bechtel, while the Kentucky operation is run by a joint venture of Bechtel and Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group, also of California.

The program was slated to cost $4.61 billion in 2003, when the program was last restructured, according to Katherine DeWeese, a spokeswoman for the program.

"We're in the process of going through and trying to figure out how to structure it," said a second defense official, who also asked not to be named.

DeWeese said costs had gone up as the companies developed more mature design plans.

"Three years later, we now have a much better idea of what this program will cost and how long it will take," she said in a statement provided to Reuters.

The program was originally established by Congress to test and demonstrate alternative technologies to incineration of old chemical weapon stockpiles. Now it oversees the full-scale pilot testing of alternative technologies at the two sites.