Near Richmond, Kentucky, hundreds of trained technicians are testing a pilot plant designed and built to methodically disassemble and destroy a portion of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile which contains the blister agent mustard and nerve agents, GB and VX.  This stockpile consists of thousands of projectiles and rockets and has been safely stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot since the 1940s.

The Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant is scheduled to begin chemical agent destruction operations in 2019. The Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass team is the government’s contractor responsible for safely destroying the stockpile while safeguarding the workforce, community and environment.

The plant will use the destruction technology neutralization followed by supercritical water oxidation to destroy the weapons containing nerve agent, and a Static Detonation Chamber, to destroy mustard agent-filled munitions.