The U.S. Department of Defense last week selected two contractors to destroy the 524-ton chemical weapons stockpile at Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky (see GSN, Jan. 3).

The Pentagon awarded the project to a joint venture of two California firms, Bechtel National and Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group.  The task of building, operating and closing the weapon destruction facility is expected to last 10 years and cost $2 billion, according to the Lexington Herald Leader.

Bechtel currently holds the contracts for destroying chemical weapons at Aberdeen, Md. (see GSN, May 15) and Pueblo, Colo. (see GSN, July 25, 2002), while Parsons is responsible for eliminating the VX stockpile at Newport, Ind. (see GSN, Nov. 19, 2002).

The firms will eliminate stocks of mustard agent, VX and GB (sarin) using a neutralization process, in which warm water and caustic solutions break down the weapons agents.

The Army has already begun talks with state agencies to seek approval for the construction of nonweapons support facilities at the plant.  “If the regulatory authorities will allow that, which we think they are going to do, they could be pushing dirt over there by late summer or early fall,” said Craig Williams, executive director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a national group that promotes disposing of chemical weapons without incineration.

The design for the neutralization facility itself could be finished in a couple of months, Williams said (Greg Kocher, Lexington Herald Leader, June 17).

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