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Blue Grass Army Depot is a U.S. Army chemical weapon and standard munitions storage facility located at Richmond, Kentucky, operated by the United States Army. It stores a small stockpile of chemical agents, comprising 523 tons of nerve agents GB (sarin) and VX, and mustard gas, or about two percent of the United States chemical weapons stockpile.[1] Beginning with an initial task order in 2003, destruction of the Blue Grass chemical weapons stockpile has been contracted out to a Joint Venture of Bechtel and Parsons using the technology known as neutralization followed by supercritical water oxidation. Transport of post-treatment wastewater to a chemical waste facility in New Jersey is being considered.[2] This is a different method than the incineration that is used at the larger stockpiles.
Groundbreaking for the chemical destruction facility took place on October 2, 2006. Due to funding restrictions, the design-build-operate-close schedule has been extended. Final design of the facilities should be complete in 2010. Pilot testing of the neutralization procedure is currently scheduled to begin in late 2016 with full-scale destruction of the chemical stockpile to start by mid-2018. The plant will operate until all the chemical weapons have been destroyed and then will start the closure (shut-down, dismantling, and restoration of site) process sometime in the early 2020s. This will put the United States in violation of the Chemical Weapons Treaty which states April 2012 as the final date for the destruction of all chemical weapons.
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