Plans for building a $500 million nuclear-weapon component manufacturing facility received approval Thursday from the City Council of Kansas City, Mo., the Kansas City Business Journal reported (see GSN, Oct. 10).
The U.S. General Services Administration is expected to pick a private firm by January to construct the 1.5 million-square-foot facility, which would manufacture nonradioactive nuclear bomb parts following the retirement of an aging facility at the nearby Bannister Federal Complex.
Council member Ed Ford was the only person to vote against the development plan, stating that “we’re all citizens of the world” and that Kansas City should not be involved in sustaining the nation’s WMD arsenal.
However, Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser said the decision would determine only where, not whether, the nuclear components would be built.
To move forward with the plan, the federal government must find a developer willing to work below a congressionally mandated funding ceiling of $38 for each square foot. The General Service Administration and the National Nuclear Security Administration must also defeat a lawsuit filed by a coalition of activist groups that oppose the facility.
“We fully anticipated a lawsuit from them,” said GSA regional oversight official Brad Scott. “That’s why we took time to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. We feel confident we’ll prevail.”
The plaintiffs have argued that the new facility would encourage abandoning the Bannister Federal Complex site without a viable waste removal plan.
“The contamination on the (Bannister) site was caused largely during the production of aircraft engines during WWII,” according to a letter from Scott to the City Council. “It has been in the process of being cleaned up ever since, and effectively” (Rob Roberts, Kansas City Business Journal, Oct. 17).