The Kentucky Environmental Foundation (KEF) was founded in 1990 by Madison County, Kentucky residents focused on safe disposal of chemical weapons stockpiled at the Blue Grass Army Depot. Our vision was to ensure that the chemical weapons stored here were destroyed as safely and efficiently as possible, not with incineration as the Army proposed, but with a method that could prevent chemical agents and other toxins from being released into the environment.

In 1991 KEF convened a conference of citizens living near other chemical weapons sites, who were also concerned about the Army’s plan to burn chemical weapons. That group became the Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG) coalition, which developed into an effective grassroots force for change in the Army’s chemical weapons program. The CWWG, with KEF as its lead organization, succeeded in defeating incineration at four of eight chemical weapons sites, where safe, non-incineration disposal technologies were chosen instead.

The decision to move forward with safer weapons disposal in Kentucky came in 2002; our chemical weapons will be destroyed in a “closed loop” neutralization and supercritical water oxidation process. In 2006 Craig Williams, then KEF Director, was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his and the CWWG’s dedication to safe weapons disposal.

Now, in addition to continuing to ensure safe weapons destruction at the Blue Grass Army Depot here in Madison County, KEF is working for safe, clean energy... and more.

Just as exposure to emissions from burning chemical weapons was unacceptable, exposure to other dangerous chemicals—from coal-fired power plants, unsafe waste disposal processes and toxic industry and products—is also unacceptable.

KEF is here to find and implement solutions that protect our health and the environment.