Blue Grass Army Depot to miss 2017 weapons disposal deadline

BY JAMES R. CARROLL • JCARROLL@COURIER-JOURNAL.COM • MAY 15, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon says the last chemical weapons at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot won't be destroyed until 2021 -- four years after a congressionally imposed deadline.
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The timetable was outlined yesterday by Jean Reed, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for biological defense and chemical demilitarization.

Reed said the Kentucky facility, already under construction, is slated to start destroying its lethal weapons in 2019 and finish in 2021.

A similar storage site in Pueblo, Colo., will begin weapons destruction in 2014 and end in 2017.

That means both sites will miss a 2012 deadline agreed to by the United States in an international treaty.

Blue Grass also would miss the 2017 deadline passed by Congress at the urging of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But McConnell's spokesman, Robert Steurer, said yesterday the senator expects the Pentagon to meet the 2017 deadline.

That's because the Department of Defense announced last week that it was increasing spending on weapons destruction. McConnell said the additional spending will speed up disposal, allowing completion by 2017.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Berea, Ky., citizens group, agreed with McConnell. Williams said the Pentagon was being conservative in its timetable.

"Once we get out of the gate with this accelerated approach and we are adequately funded, I believe there will be additional, significant time savings and cost savings in executing the program," Williams said. "Whether that will reach '17 on the dot, I don't know."

The Defense Department also said it would not ship off-site a byproduct of the chemical weapons disposal, a hazardous substance called hydrolysate. Instead, the hydrolysate would be destroyed as well at Blue Grass.

Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, said keeping the hydrolysate at the destruction site eliminates the chances of an accident during shipment. And it will provide jobs, Chandler said.

"This is yet another piece of good news for Madison County and Central Kentucky," he added.

McConnell also praised the decision.

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (202) 906-8141.