Junction City ? Construction has been delayed on a new 90-acre veterans cemetery east of Fort Riley, leaving some area veterans wondering where they’ll be buried if they die before it’s completed.

The post cemetery at Fort Riley, the only other veterans cemetery in the area, is almost full. So until the new cemetery opens, veterans or current service members who die will not be able to be buried in a veterans cemetery in the Junction City area.

The new cemetery, which the Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs will operate, is to be located east of the Army post and near the Manhattan Airport. Funding for a required unexploded ordnance survey not included in the budget is the cause of the delay.

Kafer Peele, cemetery program director for the commission, said that when it agreed to build the cemetery at Fort Riley, the post transferred the land for the cemetery to the veterans commission. In accordance with legislation on land transfers, Peele said government offices have only a certain amount of funding for their projects. The rest of the funding is accrued through grant money, he said.

The unexploded ordnance survey was requested by the Army and the cemetery archeologists. According to Jack Walker, vice chairman for the KCVA, that unexploded ordnance survey, on 90 acres of land, could cost up to $800,000.

Walker said if the commission didn’t get funding for the ordnance survey it would seek to build a veterans cemetery elsewhere in the area, either on state property or donated private property.

“If we can’t make it happen at Fort Riley, and there is no state or private land, we may be out of luck,” he said. “But we are hopeful because there is a need and a desire to have a state veterans cemetery in the area.”

Kansas Senate Majority Leader Lana Oleen, R-Manhattan, said state government had done everything it could to assist the veterans commission with this issue, but that given the state’s budget troubles it had been difficult to provide extra funding for the survey.

The post cemetery at Fort Riley soon will run out of space for new burials, said Lt. Col. Wes Anderson, director of public works.

But even if the veterans commission gets funding for the ordnance survey and is able to begin construction, Peele said the federal government and the Army still would have to approve the plans for the cemetery, which could take several more months.

It would take an unknown amount of time to complete the ordnance survey, and planning and construction of the cemetery would take about 18 months.

As a result, many area veterans and their families may be without burial space at an area veterans cemetery for two years or more.

Retired Army 1st Sgt. Albert Curley of Junction City wants to be buried near home. But he has already decided that if he can’t be buried near Junction City, he won’t be buried in Kansas at all.

Curley is authorized to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

“I would prefer to be buried in this area because of my family,” Curley said. “It’s not fair to the veterans in this area that have served, that they would have to be moved to another cemetery.”