Chandler, McConnell Protect Depot Funding

By Bill Robinson
Register News Writer

September 09, 2009 08:30 am

— U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Sixth District, and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell have managed to protect or increase funding for the destruction of chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot, according to Craig Williams, co-chair of the Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board.
At the quarterly CDCAB meeting Tuesday at Eastern Kentucky University, Williams said McConnell had secured an additional $5 million for the Senate bill to fund the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program.
The Senate proposal would appropriate $547 million for the effort.
ACWA is in charge of using chemical neutralization to destroy the 100,000 rounds of chemical weapons stored at the depot south of Richmond, as well as other chemical munitions at a Colorado depot.
In the House of Representatives, Williams said Chandler had thwarted an attempt to reduce by $50 million that chamber’s appropriations proposal, which stands at $542 million.
ACWA Program Manager Kevin Flamm had “gone to the mat” to defend and promote the program within the Defense Department, Williams said.
“We have a good team of people at multiple levels working to get (chemical weapons destruction) done,” Williams said. “I’ve never felt more optimistic about this.”
While such confidence has proved short-lived in the past, he said the program has never enjoyed such momentum.
Flamm deflected Williams’ praise.
“I haven’t had to go to the mat for anything,” Flamm said.
The Defense Department and the entire Obama administration have “a sincere desire to get rid” of the nation’s remaining stockpile of obsolete chemical weapons “as quickly as possible,” he said.
Flamm said he merely had “championed the good work done by people here at (the) Blue Grass (Army Depot’s) destruction project and at Pueblo (Colo.),” where the other remaining stockpile is stored.
Those efforts have inspired confidence among Pentagon officials and won Defense Department backing for the increased funding, he said.
In June, ACWA officials put 2021 as the likely date for destruction of the last chemical weapons stored in Kentucky.
One technical hurdle for the project has been overcome with the Pentagon Explosives Safety Board’s approval of the contractor’s design for walls in a blast containment structure within the destruction plant.
Mark Seely, project manager for Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, included the approval in his update of the plant’s construction.
The ESB’s rejection of an earlier containment wall design delayed the project by about five months and added about $2 million to its cost, officials said at previous CDCAB meetings.
Dr. John Barton, chief scientist for Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, summarized the chemistry of nerve- and mustard-agent neutralization, as well as the super-critical water oxidation (SCWO) that will be used to treat the hazardous wastes that will result after the agents’ neutralization.
Water for both neutralization and SCWO will be collected and stored on the depot, Barton said. About 70 percent of the water used for neutralization will be recycled into the process, he said.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.