Chemical weapons destruction at the Madison County Army Depot plant is currently on hold. The pause came earlier this week when officials at both area hospitals reported full capacities. Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant Principal Deputy Karl Slaughenhaupt said there are agreements with two county hospitals to provide emergency care in the event of chemical exposure to workers. That couldn’t be assured when both health care facilities were at capacity.
While some rooms at St. Joseph Berea Hospital became available, Slaughenhaupt said the decision was made not to start back up operations. “Starting and stopping a project like this, you know fits and starts, it’s just disruptive. When you’re changing the off-tempo like that, we just felt like that was incurring additional risk and it would be safer and smarter to just conduct other maintenance activities and continue to monitor the situation,” said Slaughenhaupt
Slaughenhaupt noted his office is contacting about 12 other hospitals in the region and determining if they might be additional options. Also, the plant official said the positioning of a medevac aircraft on site is also being investigated, but no request has been made at this point.
Slaughenhaupt doesn’t expect the interruption in disposal to affect the schedule long term. The chemical weapons pilot plant official said it’s too early to say if operations will resume next week.
