Posted on 04/22/2003 4:13:09 PM PDT by kattracks
U.S. weighs German sealant for Pentagon walls
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - The Defense Department, prodded by a lawmaker angry at German opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, said on Tuesday it was weighing whether to stick with its chosen German-based product for a potential $4.3 million contract to seal the Pentagon's exterior concrete walls.
The chief engineer of the building's 20-year, $3-billion renovation project, Georgine Glatz, has been comparing the sealant with a rival made in the complainant lawmaker's hometown in Ohio, said a department spokesman, Brett Eaton.
An outside engineering firm, Northbrook, Illinois-based Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., has conducted an independent assessment which is being reviewed, Eaton said.
The product at issue, Keim Concretal, is based on a mineral coating system made by Germany's Keimfarben AG. It is refined and distributed by Cohalan Co. Inc., of Lewes, Delaware.
"We expect to complete our review and brief the congressman by the end of this week," Eaton said.
The lawmaker, Ohio Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette, wants the deal to go to ChemMasters Specialty Construction Products of Madison, Ohio, a Pentagon memo said.
Engineers have determined that a sophisticated corrosion protection system, including a sealer, is needed to shore up the walls of the 60-year-old U.S. military headquarters.
The renovation project has taken on a higher profile since a hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon as part of the Sept. 11, 2001, assault on the United States.
LaTourette could not immediately be reached for comment. But the Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted him as questioning why a German company would get a Pentagon contract when Germany opposed the early use of force in Iraq and a comparable domestic product was available.
Keim Concretal was chosen by the project's structural engineer, Tadier, Cohen and Edelson, which said Keim products had been used on the U.S. Capitol and the White House.
The corrosion inhibitor component of the system is American made. Only the coating portion of the system is imported, the Pentagon memo said.
At issue is a $1.1 million contract for Wedge 2 of the Pentagon, the world's largest low-rise office building. Options for three other wedges would bring the total value of the deal to $4.3 million, the Pentagon said.
Before launching the war on March 20, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lumped Germany with Libya and Cuba as among the few countries he said were dead set against U.S. plans to use force to oust President Saddam Hussein.
04/22/03 18:46 ET
--Boot Hill
Not according to the Pentagon.
--Boot Hill
Paraphrasing this March 27, 2003 paragraph from the German magazine:
The penatgon says they have used the paint for 100 years. Walls of the Capital and the White House are painted with it, among others. The US firm ChemMaster has a more econonomical product, but it isn't tecnically comparable and hasn't been tested enough.
Apparently 7,000 gallons have been used already, the dicussion is to buy the remaining 35,000 gallons needed from a company in Ohio.
longjack
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