DOD to Release $300 Million for Blue Grass, Pueblo

The U.S. Defense Department plans to release at least $300 million for construction of chemical weapons neutralization sites in Colorado and Kentucky, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, April 13).

Defense Undersecretary Michael Wynne also said in a memo that the possibility of relocating weapons from the two locations to already operating incinerators in other states should not be considered “at this time.”

The Pentagon had frozen more than $700 million from the Pueblo, Colo., and Blue Grass, Ky., weapons depots while it sought less-expensive options for destroying their stockpiles.

In the memo, Wynne asks that site project managers prepare spending plans to help the United States meet its anticipated 2012 deadline to destroy its chemical weapons, AP reported.

“It sounds like complete capitulation to me,” said Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had joined other lawmakers in demanding that the Pentagon abandon any thoughts of relocating weapons (see GSN, April 8; Hilary Roxe, Associated Press/Lexington Herald-Leader, April 20).

Meanwhile, contractor Bechtel on Monday offered a tentative plan for reducing the anticipated $2.6 billion price tag for the Pueblo disposal facility, The Pueblo Chieftain reported (see GSN, Feb. 24).

The Pentagon ordered Bechtel to cut the project cost back to $1.7 billion, according to the Chieftain.

Cost-cutting options include building a smaller processing plant, and shipping components of disassembled weapons and wastewater produced by neutralization of mustard agent to other sites for final disposal.

A local advisory group had rejected those options during development of the original disposal plan, the Chieftain reported.

The new plan is expected to be submitted to the Defense Department in June. With approval, final design work could begin in September, roughly a year after it was halted (John Norton, The Pueblo Chieftain, April 19).

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