The Blue Grass program is a multi phase project spanning a decade of work, with an estimated life-cycle cost of about $2 billion. Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass is a joint venture of Bechtel National, Inc., of San Francisco, CA, and Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group, Inc., of Pasadena, CA. The joint venture has four teaming subcontractors: Washington Demilitarization Company, Battelle Memorial Institute, General Physics, and General Atomics.
Under the contract’s first task order, a design-build plan will be developed for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant. Subsequent tasks will be awarded for design completion, construction, systemization (start-up testing), pilot testing, operation, and ultimately, closure.
The plant will use neutralization followed by supercritical water oxidation to destroy the Kentucky chemical weapons stockpile comprised of blister agent in projectiles and nerve agent in projectiles and rockets.
Blue Grass Army Depot is located in east central Kentucky, just southeast of the city of Richmond and approximately 30 miles southeast of the city of Lexington. Since 1944, the Army has safely stored approximately two percent of the nation's original chemical weapons stockpile at Blue Grass. The Army conducted studies to evaluate potential impacts of the elimination of these weapons using incineration and non-incineration methods. The Department of Defense selected neutralization followed by supercritical water oxidation for use at Blue Grass based on technical and environmental studies and input from the community.
