Will chem weapons stay in Colorado?

Don't even think about moving chemical weapons out of Colorado, a senator from that state says in a bill he introduced Wednesday.

If approved, the measure by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., could have an impact on Utah. It would thwart any plan to ship chemical weapons from the Pueblo (Colo.) Chemical Depot for destruction in the Army's $1 billion incinerator near Stockton, Tooele County.

"It's illegal for them to move the stuff, OK?" said Angela de Rocha, communications director for Allard, contacted by telephone at the Republican senator's Washington, D.C., office.

"The Pentagon has conducted three earlier studies and they concluded it was impractical." However, she added, "they're going to spend more money on another study," unless blocked.

The Utah plant has been operating since 1996, burning the country's largest stockpile of chemical arms. But no facility has been built to destroy Pueblo's weapons — Allard said there are 780,000 of them, amounting to 2,600 tons of deadly mustard agent.

Recently, the Army confirmed that the DoD had directed it to consider ways to assure that treaty deadlines are met for destroying the arms. That included looking into relocating weapons, an Army spokeswoman said.

Since Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele County hosts the nearest working chemical weapons incinerator to Pueblo, Colo., this state seems a likely destination of any weapons shift.

Craig Williams, an anti-incinerator activist who directs the Chemical Weapons Working Group, Berea, Ky., said last week he was told the Army has been studying a transportation corridor from Colorado to Tooele County. But he refused to tell the Deseret Morning News who said that, and the paper was unable to confirm it.

De Rocha provided a text of Allard's statement in the Senate Wednesday as he introduced a bill to force the DoD to destroy mustard agent at Pueblo Chemical Depot. It too indicates the Army is studying a route to move the weapons.

Allard said the cost of the country's program to destroy chemical arms has grown from $15 billion, the 1977 estimate, to $24 billion in 2001. Some argue the ultimate price could be $30 billion, he said.

"The time schedule has experienced unconscionable delays," Allard added, according to the text. "Last year, the cleanup at Pueblo was expected to be completed by 2011." The latest date is 2021, nine years past the deadline in the Chemical Weapons Convention, he said.

Last week, he and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., met with two Department of Defense officials to discuss the program, he said. The senators asked questions and were promised a written response from DoD Undersecretary Michael Wynne within three days, he added.