Brian Smith
Army officials gave members of the media a rare peek at the construction of the chemical weapons demilitarization plant under construction at the Blue Grass Army Depot on Tuesday as part of a tour for two members of Kentucky’s congressional delegation.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Rep. Ben Chandler, D-6th District, visited the site Tuesday morning for a briefing on progress at the site of the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Demilitarization Pilot Plant (BGCAPP). The facility, targeted to be completed in 2016, will neutralize and dispose of the more than 500 tons of chemical weapons stored at the depot.
As part of the tour, McConnell and Chandler spoke to reporters at a news conference in the Personnel Support Building, one of two structures at the facility which are already completed.
“I think that we do see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s good news,” Chandler said about the project. “I don’t think we’ve ever been this close to getting this done.”
Chandler and McConnell jointly claimed credit for the construction project being fully funded in the two most recent federal budgets, and McConnell thanked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for ordering Pentagon budget officials to request the project be fully funded.
While officials with the Army and the contractor in charge of the project, Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass, claim that the weapons will not be fully destroyed until 2021, McConnell and Chandler both stated firmly that they expected the weapons to be destroyed by a 2017 deadline.
“From our position, the law says 2017 and we’re not interested in changing the law,” McConnell said.
The 2017 deadline was enacted by Congress and represents an extension from the 2012 deadline in the international treaty that required the U.S. and other nations to destroy their chemical weapon stockpiles.
“We realize there is a very real danger as long as these exist,” Chandler said.
The BGCAPP construction site occupies 18 acres of a 53-acre tract, and 120 construction workers are pouring foundations, installing structural steel and preparing the site for concrete walls to be poured beginning later this year.
An estimated 450 construction workers will be working at the site at the height of building, a Bechtel Parsons spokesman said during the tour.
Once the facility is complete, a secured corridor between the plant and the depot will be used to transport the weapons into the building, where state-of-the-art machinery will extract and neutralize both the chemicals and the munitions, then destroy the containers.
Portions of the facility will have walls up to 42 inches thick to contain an accidental detonation, and air filtration equipment will prevent any of the chemical agents from escaping the facility in the event of an accident, officials said.
Participants in the tour were restricted from photographing the storage igloos next to the plant as well as the interior of the Personnel Support Building where the press conference was conducted, although photographs of the construction site and inside the conference room were permitted.
Tour officials also banned cellular phones and other communications equipment on the tour, citing security concerns.
Brian Smith may be reached at bsmith@richmondregister.com or at 624-6694.
