RICHMOND, Ky. (LEX 18) — With the deadline a little less than 90 days away, officials from the United State Department of Defense and the Blue Grass Army Depot gathered in Richmond on Wednesday to update their progress on the dismantling and disposing of a large stock of dangerous chemical weapons.
“I’m going to knock wood, as we always do when we talk about this. We are well ahead of meeting our schedule to meeting that timeline,” said Michael Abaie the Executive Officer for Assembled Chemical Weapons.
Back in 1997, the United States entered the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty, which required several nations to dismantle their respective stockpiles of chemical weapons. The deadline to have that completed at Richmond’s Depot and another facility in Pueblo, Colorado is September 30. These two facilities housed 10 percent of the nation’s supply. The other 90 percent is spread out between 7 other facilities across the country.
“10 percent of the stockpile that were housed at Blue Grass and in Pueblo cost over 13 billion dollars to complete,” Mr. Abaie said of the cost to demolish these weapons and many of their delivery methods.
While safely storing and taking apart these weapons were major parts of what continues to go on at Blue Grass Army Depot, the facility itself will remain active once the last weapon has been destroyed.
“We talked about the feasibility study to talk about what we can do (here) in the future,” said Colonel Brett Ayvazian. “The other portions of the Depot, there are no intentions for them to stop,” the Commander of the Depot continued.
Congress added a 90-day cushion to the dismantling schedule, giving other facilities until December 31 to complete the mission.
