The expected timeline to finish destroying secondary waste at the Blue Grass Army Depot’s chemical weapons destruction plant is being pushed back. The Army’s Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program says they now expect to finish the process in November. The original plan was to finish in March. The delay is for maintenance on the plan’s static detonation chambers, which are used to destroy containerized rocket warheads with residual amounts of nerve agent. Workforce project manager Joe Curcio says the delay is for maintenance on the plant’s static detonation chambers. Those chambers are used to destroy containerized rocket warheads with residual amounts of nerve agent. One chamber, called the SDC 1200, will have a fragmentation shield replaced. “We have a frag shield that essentially protects the main unit itself, kind of like maybe a glove might protect your hand, right? So it’s a consumable item that’s interior to the unit itself, and that basically met the end of life,” Curcio said. The other chamber, the SDC 2000, will have maintenance done to prevent cracks. “There’s some things there relative to fractures within the unit, not something we didn’t expect, but again, things that require repair. So you essentially have to do weld repairs associated with that,” Curcio said. Government site project manager Shannon Pendergrass says they’re currently looking at how that affects the plant’s workforce. “We do know that we need to understand for all of our support organizations, what the impact is to their personnel drawdown, what contract modifications may need to be made to extend some contracts, additional maintenance and supplies, those types of things,” Pendergrass said. The change isn’t expected to affect the overall timeline of the plant’s decommissioning, which is still expected by 2027. ** WEKU is working hard to be a leading source for public service, and fact-based journalism. Monthly supporters are the top funding source for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation. The post Blue Grass Army Depot chemical weapons plant pushes back secondary waste destruction timeline appeared first on The Lexington Times.