PUEBLO — Members of Colorado’s congressional delegation have introduced a bill that would prohibit the shipment of waste from the Pueblo Chemical Depot to an off-site facility.
Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall want more than 2,600 tons of mustard agent held in 780,000 mortar shells and artillery projectiles — and byproducts created from the destruction — disposed of at the depot 15 miles east of Pueblo.
Last fall, the government launched two new studies to determine whether it would be cheaper and faster to ship hydrolysate, the mixture of neutralized mustard agent and water, to a plant off-site. Those studies are ongoing.
The Army and the Pueblo community had agreed to neutralize the mustard with water, then send that solution to a bio treatment plant, similar to a municipal sewage plant, where bacteria would be used to break down the solution.
“I think this is one of those national security priorities,” said Sen. Salazar on a visit last week to the depot. “We need to get to a conclusion and we need to do it as soon as possible.”
Salazar and Sen. Wayne Allard added an amendment to a defense appropriations bill last year that sets a deadline of 2017 for destruction of the weapons. The Pueblo community has waited for two decades for the weapons to be destroyed.
“By moving ahead with on site treatment of hydrolysate, DOD (the Defense Department) will be better able to meet its legal obligation to complete chemical weapons destruction by 2017,” Salazar said. “This step will also provide some certainty to the communities that have waited so long for these chemical weapons to be safely destroyed.”
So far, 127 people are employed in construction work; that number is expected to increase to about 300 employees by summer. The plant is the largest public project in southern Colorado since the Pueblo Reservoir was completed in 1975.
An access road, security fence, security checkpoint, high-mast lights and underground utilities have been installed. The foundation for a building where energetics will be removed from mortar shells is underway. So far, more than $450 million has been spent on the project, estimated to cost $3.6 billion.
Ross Vincent, a senior policy adviser with the Sierra Club, said the community is pleased with the introduction of the bill.
“I think just about everybody here is delighted that they have taken that step. We’ve had to fight this battle over and over and over again for at least four or five years now,” Vincent said. “We just keep rehashing these issues over and over again.”
Two studies conducted by the government earlier in 2007 concerning the off-site shipment of hydrolysate found it would yield little, if any, cost savings and likely result in litigation and a delay in destruction of the weapons.
Erin Emery: 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com
