Kansas City News Blog

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Bannister Road Kansas City Plant

When the feds sell a project, by God, they really sell a project.

Representatives from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the General Services Administration dropped by City Hall yesterday to ask for the Planning and Zoning Committee's final blessing on the Kansas City Plant's move from offices on Bannister Road to a new facility in what one presenter called "the industrial heart of the 6th District." In doing so, they threw around so many million-dollar figures that Lil Wayne ought to remix the meeting's Channel 2 audio into his next club banger.

The meeting was the public's last chance to comment in support or opposition to the relocation of the Kansas City Plant, which is the U.S.'s primary site where the non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons are manufactured, assembled and procured.

Ann Suellentrop, a registered nurse and member of Peace Works KC and Physicians for Social Responsibility, spoke out against the plant along with a representative of the Sierra Club. But the other testimony was a parade of yeses: from the South Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas City Port Authority, the Heavy Constructors Association, the project's architects from HNTB, and the project's development team of Zimmer Real Estate Services LC and CenterPoint Property Trust of Chicago.

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The meeting was much less contentious than last week's Planned Industrial Expansion Authority hearing last Friday. Numerous no-nuke advocates attended that meeting, and the public's commentary period was cut short. Retired plant worker Maurice Copeland was tossed out for raising his voice.

Yesterday's presentations from Michael Brincks, acting director of the GSA's Heartland Region, and NNSA Site Manager Mark Holecek gave the impression that, rather than spending $673 million, Kansas City is actually receiving an envelope of cash in the form of future tax payments to the Grandview School District and a cattle-prod-like stimulus to the local economy.

According to Holecek, the new facility will employ 2,100 employees, less than the current 2,400. Still, that's  2,100 high-paying jobs that won't be leaving KC, Holecek said, and they'll be looking to hire young workers to make up for the plant's large population of  50-and-older employees nearing retirement. The newer, more environmentally sound construction will save $100 million a year in maintenance fees over the ancient Bannister Road facility.

Contamination at that site has already been cleaned up under the Department of National Resources' watch -- for a scant $65 million, Holecek said. And there's the promise of wetland mitigation on the site and even a hiking trail. Listening to Holecek, KC's new nuclear weapons factory started to sound more like a parks-and-recreation project.

Brincks' presentation on behalf of the GSA, with his arsenal of dollar signs, was even more impressive: Once the new plant is completed, in 2011, it will earn the city $5.2 million in property taxes. It'll pour another $2.1 million into our coffers in payroll taxes. The project will inject another $75 million into the local economy, which, spread over 20 years, is a lot. (Still, he left that figure for us to multiply for ourselves -- why should he have all the fun?).

Here's where the math got really fancy: Every million dollars spent on construction, Brincks said, represents $4.3 million in future local-economy stimulus. And the farmland soon to be taken over by this state-of-the-art facility, which once represented a mere $652 in taxes to the Grandview School District, will now rain $1.6 million a year. Does it help the children? Brincks seemed to think so.

But, peacenik Suellentrop reminded the council, what about President Barack Obama's speech? The one he gave last April in Prague, in which he said that the United States, as the only nation ever to deploy a nuclear weapon, had a moral responsibility to lead the way toward a nuclear-weapons-free world? What's the point of building a $673 million nuclear-weapons facility in the midst of disarmament talks?

In his presentation, Holecek acknowledged that there had been "much debate" on the Kansas City plant's future workload. He stressed that the new plant is designed to be much more flexible to the nation's changing needs while keeping employees' "critical skills" sharp in the face of a future threat to national safety. Plus, the plant has been doing more and more national security activity. Asked about that vague phrase after the meeting, Holecek said it was something he wasn't really allowed to talk much about, but it can include non-nuclear weapons production and design work for the Department of Defense and its private-sector contractors.

Before the council voted, Suellentrop passed around an invitation to hear Hiroshima survivor Yoshiko Kajimoto speak. That event is Wednesday, July 8, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Hudson Auditorium in the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College.

Councilman John Sharp asked for a paper invitation, and Suellentrop passed them around. "I certainly share the concerns of the people who are concerned with this project and who feel uncomfortable with the decisions made by the past administration," Sharp said. He added that he was pleased to see the current administration's dedication to reducing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. He hoped that more remediation wouldn't be necessary at the old Bannister site but said that it was good to keep more than 2,000 "good-paying" jobs in Kansas City and to accept the monetary spin-off promised to the local economy. He hoped to see the nation take more steps toward nuclear disarmament. Then he advanced the project to the committee for a vote. It passed unanimously.

"It's a sad day for Kansas City, in my opinion," Suellentrop said in the hallway outside the council chambers. She expects the council to rubber-stamp the project today without any further debate.