138th Year... and still on the job!	Wednesday July 11, 2007

Army rethinks use for Pueblo Chemical Depot


By JOHN NORTON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAN

A lot of people have wondered why the Pueblo Chemical Depot was placed on the base realignment and closure (BRAC) list when the government should have known it's going to be years before its stockpile of chemical weapons will be eliminated and the real estate turned over to any other agency.

That assessment also has occurred to the Army, too, Lt. Col. John Riley told the depot's Restoration Advisory Board this week during a meeting at the base. The board is made up of neighbors, base staffers and local officials and receives regular updates on the efforts to clean up environmental problems on the 65-year-old facility.

Riley said that most bases on the BRAC list are turned over to civilian control relatively quickly.

While there is a reuse authority that leases most of the Pueblo Chemical Depot igloos, warehouses and other buildings outside the stockpile area and then sub-lets them, no actual land transfers have occurred because of the base's ongoing mission of safeguarding 780,000 artillery shells and mortar rounds containing mustard agent.

During the 1980s, the Army moved quickly to shut down the depot's jobs, outside of the chemical weapons stockpile, which cannot be moved.

Those weapons are going to be destroyed, but the most optimistic estimates don't see that job getting done before 2020.

In the meantime, some top Army officers are having second thoughts about writing off the depot.

Riley said that in the past few years there has been periodic talk about using the Pueblo base to support activities at Fort Carson.

With the impending arrival of 20,000 additional soldiers to Fort Carson and large amounts of equipment, the depot is looking a lot more attractive.
Riley said that the Army Materiel Command has expressed an interest.

Taking the chemical depot off of the BRAC list literally would take an act of Congress. The BRAC system was set up to keep politics out of base closure decisions with the aim of keeping lawmakers from protecting facilities in their states and districts.

Marv Stein, chairman of the depot’s reuse authority, said he was not aware of any new movement toward using the base, but added, "I would be thrilled if they would use it and put people down here and create jobs."

Stein has been lobbying Fort Carson brass for some time, urging them to make use of the authority's buildings and igloos.

Because the authority must pay for upkeep, it would need to charge the Army. Stein said the agency has offered the Army a discount.

If the depot was turned back into a full-scale base, Stein said, there would be questions about how to handle the four- and five-year subleases the authority has granted to tenants.

The depot currently employs approximately 300 people with another 100 hired so far for the demilitarization process.

Riley said that even if it were to take on support duties for Fort Carson, it would not restore the depot to the activity levels it saw decades ago.