Nuke-onomics in the Heartland

I know you’re weary. Floods, global warming, poverty, war. Threats not just to you, but your kids and grandkids. It gets old. But here’s a new one. The nukular nuts want to bring devastation to Kansas.

The good news is, you can do something about it.

The Bush administration has scared U.S. and world citizens with its drumbeat of threats against other countries developing nuclear weapons. The Bushies are quite right on that count. The only sane thing to do is eliminate nukes, not build them.

Problem is, they are building them.

In terms of usable nukes, the U.S. is the world’s most dangerous country. We have over 10,000 such weapons, vastly outnumbering Israel, India, Pakistan, Britain, France and China, with numbers from 50 to 410. Yet instead of calling an international disarmament conference and taking the lead by beginning to dismantle the world’s haunting holocausts, they want more. The Bush’s Bombplex 2030 plan would add 125 new nuclear bombs to the U.S. arsonal every year.

They’re coming to Kansas City. But you can stop them.

The danger is not just nuclear. It is also financial and environmental. Bombplex 2030’s total costs are estimated by the Department of Energy at $155 billion, likely a grossly inadequate figure. After first ignoring the Kansas City plant, which manufactures more than 85% of the non-nuclear components in warheads, DOE now wants to spend half a billion on a new bomb plant to replace the existing KC facility.

Half a billion is not chump change in Kansas. It might look like great economic development. But t’ain’t so when tainted by great environmental risk.
It is. And we can stop it.

The U.S. has failed to clean up its mess at countless nuke production sites, KC included. Many contaminated sites have become sacrifice zones. The KCP has a similar history of environmental problems with no government funding to clean them up. The Bushies have budgeted not a penny for cleaning up the 42 contaminated sites around the existing plant or even to continue groundwater treatment and monitoring beyond 2007. Yet they would spend a half- billion on a new plant. Are we to be the New Orleans of the plains?

No. Because we can stop it.

Send your comment to the General Services Administration before May 30 via e-mail at carlos.salazar@gsa.gov or mail to Carlos Salazar, GSA Regional NEPA Coordinator, 1500 East Bannister Road, Room 2191 (6PTA) Kansas City, MO 64131.

Thank you.