Newport facility operating costs up

Figure $50K a day more than reported last year

By Patricia L. Pastore/Tribune-Star

September 23, 2004

The cost of operating the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility has grown to about $300,000 a day, according to the latest figures compiled by Jeff Brubaker, Army project site manager and the budget analyst.

This is $50,000 a day more than the figure the Army reported last year.

The latest figure comes from daily costs incurred June 4 through Aug. 4, he said. It includes costs for facility operations, laboratory, program management, administrative and project support staff as well as government monitoring and oversight personnel.

"The period of time starting in June 2004 was the beginning of demonstrating readiness to begin operations.," he said.

The disposal facility is preparing to neutralize about 1,269 tons of the deadly nerve agent VX, a Cold War weapon stockpiled at the chemical depot since it was manufactured on-site in the 1960s.

The Chemical Agent Disposal Facility is part of the Newport Chemical Depot. In addition to the $300,000, the rate of running the depot's stockpile storage/base operations side runs to just over $60,000 a day, Brubaker said.

Over the past two years, there have been many delays in the Army's schedule to destroy the nerve agent.

Last month, Brubaker said he expected VX destruction to begin later this year.

Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group of Kentucky claims "There is zero predictability within the Chemical Agent Disposal Program because the cost continues to escalate."

The CWWG is an international coalition of citizens living near chemical weapons storage sites. Part of its mission is ensuring their safe elimination and disposal.

Newport is one of eight chemical weapons storage sites across this country where the Army is working to destroy stockpiles. The United States under the Reagan administration signed a multinational Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty and agreed to destroy all the stockpiles by 2007.

"The program is 22 billion dollars over budget and at least 17 years behind schedule," Williams said. He said although the government claims to have a handle on cost and schedule, apparently it doesn't because problems have occurred at every site.

Marilyn Daughdrill, Chemical Materials Agency spokeswoman, confirmed the accuracy of Williams' numbers. The cost estimate for the program was established in 1985 when "Congress told us to destroy the stockpile by 2004," she said. "We were extraordinarily optimistic."

She said the Army learned about problems it might encounter with stockpile destruction as it went through the process.

The first stumbling blocks came when destroying chemical agents in various weapons at Johnston Island, in an incinerator built specifically for destruction.

Daughdrill said the accelerated program after Sept. 11, 2001, caused destruction facility designs to shift and added new challenges.

"Every time we started a new campaign at a different site, we'd find something different in terms of the agent condition," she said. "At Anniston [Alabama] we had crystals in the liquid agent. The GB, nerve agent, jelled at Tooele, Utah and couldn't be drained as easily as expected."

Every site is unique because storage conditions are different. Daughdrill said. She said it is the agent condition and characteristics that change from site to site, not the purity of the agent.

The Chemical Demilitarization Program began in the 1970s, Daughdrill said. She said over the past 20 years, price increases are fairly common in nearly everything.

Patricia Pastore can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or pat.pastore@tribstar.com