By George Lobsenz
A federal judge last week threw out a suit filed by environmentalists and antinuclear groups seeking to block construction of a new nuclear weapons components plant in Kansas City that is being developed through an unusual financing scheme in which a private developer will build the estimated $500 million facility and then lease it to the government for 20 years.
Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an oral ruling from the bench dismissing the lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups contending that the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and General Services Administration (GSA) violated federal law by failing to conduct an adequate environmental review of the facility, which is to replace NNSA’s aging Kansas City Plant.
The environmental groups challenged an April 2008 analysis by GSA and NNSA that found that construction of the new Kansas City Plant at a new site in Kansas City would have no significant impact on the environment.
Among other issues, the groups charged the agencies should have examined the costs of cleaning up contamination at the existing Kansas City Plant, which manufactures non- nuclear components for nuclear warheads, as part of their analysis of the environmental impacts of the new project.
The groups allege NNSA is seeking to avoid cleanup costs that they suggest will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and say that the semi-autonomous DoE weapons agency should not be pursuing an expensive new facility at a time when the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal is shrinking.
NNSA officials have suggested the new Kansas City Plant would be environmentally preferable and more operationally flexible than trying to redevelop part of its existing Kansas City Plant into a modernized production facility.
However, the antinuclear groups also have raised concerns about the convoluted financing approach being used by NNSA and GSA to build the new 1.5 million-square foot facility, which is being located at a greenfield site on the outskirts of Kansas City.
Under the scheme, GSA has picked a private developer, CenterPoint Zimmer LLC, to privately finance the new facility, with the help of bonds issued by the Kansas City Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA), a local economic development agency that is also providing tax breaks for the project.
GSA is to lease the new facility on the behalf of NNSA for 20 years, with NNSA’s rent payments ultimately going to the PIEA to pay off the bonds.
The complex financing scheme has allowed NNSA to avoid going to Congress for major new funding for a new weapons facility at a time when the federal deficit is soaring. Such a request likely would draw opposition from key lawmakers who are pressing NNSA to downsize its nuclear weapons complex to reflect the ongoing reduction in the size of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, which President Obama is moving to shrink further through a new arms control agreement with Russia.
“At a time when Congress is trying to reduce the costs and environmental footprint of the nuclear weapons complex, a cabal of regional federal agency officials and private developers is trying to hoodwink both federal and local taxpayers into footing the bill for a huge new plant for nuclear weapons production on what is now 185 acres of vacant agricultural land at the southwestern edge of Kansas City,” Christopher Paine, nuclear program director for the NRDC, said in an Oct. 9, 2008, statement announcing the lawsuit against the project, which is to built in farm fields.
“Alaska has its ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ and now it seems Kansas City has its very own sinkhole in a soybean field for taxpayers.”
NRDC also raised questions about whether GSA’s proposed leasing approach violated the federal Anti-Deficiency Act and other laws on federal spending. And the group said the lease payments would amount to $1.2 billion over 20 years–far more than the estimated $500 million cost of the facility.
Local antinuclear groups in Kansas City also have challenged the role of the PIEA in financing the NNSA project, saying the agency should be focusing on fighting urban blight rather than helping build a nuclear facility on the edge of town.
The PIEA has touted the huge payroll and economic benefits of retaining the Kansas City Plant. NNSA had considered consolidating non-nuclear component production operations at other existing weapons sites, including Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. However, the agency said it would face significant relocation costs and face difficulty in moving or replacing the highly trained existing workforce in Kansas City.