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Pentagon Approves New Pueblo Chemical Depot Plan
The U.S. Defense Department has approved a plan that calls for building a smaller chemical weapons disposal plant that employs fewer workers than originally planned at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, the Pueblo Chieftain reported yesterday (see GSN, July 25). The depot now is expected to ship explosive materials and wooden crates and pallets off site for final disposal, but keep wastewater produced by neutralization on site for treatment. Chemical Materials Agency Director Mike Parker met with Defense Undersecretary Kenneth Kreig on July 22 to present the new plan, aimed at keeping Pueblo’s destruction budget below a $1.5 billion ceiling set by the Pentagon. Design work on the Pueblo neutralization site was frozen last fall when the cost estimate grew to $2.6 billion. Since then, contractor Bechtel devised a plan that calls for using two processing lines instead of three at the facility. Under Bechtel’s new plan, the facility would be half its original size and would employ 900 workers, 300 less than the original plan. Now that the plan has been approved, Bechtel can resume designing the facility, with a Pentagon review scheduled for February 2006. Defense Department officials plan to begin preparing funding requests this fall for fiscal 2007. However, some work can begin using $25 million in contracts being issued for initial work, according to Bechtel Project Manager Joe Nemec. One recently awarded contract is for site surveys another for soil and concrete testing (John Norton, Pueblo Chieftain, July 28).
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