diff --git a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/recalibration/RecalibrationArgumentCollection.java b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/recalibration/RecalibrationArgumentCollection.java
index ffdb0cca7..7f3035f1e 100755
--- a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/recalibration/RecalibrationArgumentCollection.java
+++ b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/gatk/walkers/recalibration/RecalibrationArgumentCollection.java
@@ -87,6 +87,6 @@ public class RecalibrationArgumentCollection {
      * The context covariate will use a context of this size to calculate it's covariate value
      */
     @Argument(fullName = "context_size", shortName = "cs", doc = "size of the k-mer context to be used", required = false)
-    int CONTEXT_SIZE = 8;
+    public int CONTEXT_SIZE = 8;
 
 }
diff --git a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/recalibration/BaseRecalibration.java b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/recalibration/BaseRecalibration.java
index ce52f09a2..75d4b1e17 100644
--- a/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/recalibration/BaseRecalibration.java
+++ b/public/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/recalibration/BaseRecalibration.java
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ package org.broadinstitute.sting.utils.recalibration;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.gatk.walkers.recalibration.Covariate;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.gatk.walkers.recalibration.RecalDataManager;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.gatk.walkers.recalibration.RecalDatum;
+import org.broadinstitute.sting.gatk.walkers.recalibration.RecalibrationArgumentCollection;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.utils.QualityUtils;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.utils.classloader.PluginManager;
 import org.broadinstitute.sting.utils.collections.NestedHashMap;
@@ -121,8 +122,9 @@ public class BaseRecalibration {
                         final boolean createCollapsedTables = true;
 
                         // Initialize any covariate member variables using the shared argument collection
+                        RecalibrationArgumentCollection RAC = new RecalibrationArgumentCollection();
                         for( Covariate cov : requestedCovariates ) {
-                            cov.initialize( null ); // BUGBUG: do any of the used covariates actually need the RecalibrationArgumentCollection?
+                            cov.initialize( RAC );
                         }
                         // Initialize the data hashMaps
                         dataManager = new RecalDataManager( createCollapsedTables, requestedCovariates.size() );