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| | | published Sunday, February 24, 2008 | 1820 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER - Associated Press Writer
Posted on Thu, Feb. 21, 2008 at
http://www.thestate.com/312/story/323827.html
NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. --
Protesters bearing posters of nuclear bomb-blasted Hiroshima and Nagasaki greeted Department of Energy officials who came to South Carolina on Thursday to get public comments on the agency's plans to revamp the nation's nuclear weapons facilities.
"Stop the insanity! Slow down our nuclear weapons production!" said Henry Gurr, a retired physics professor from nearby Aiken.
Members of nearly 20 environmental and anti-nuclear groups from the Southeast lined up to speak at the agency's first national hearing on its plans to shrink and consolidate weapons facilities at eight major locations around the country. DOE officials say the changes will improve security and ultimately save taxpayers money.
While the plan calls for few changes at the nearby Savannah River nuclear facility, the agency is required by law to get local input on its plans.
Before the hearing began at a community center, one protester in a fuzzy pig outfit jumped up and down at the entrance, holding a poster that read: "We love nuclear pork!"
At the hearing, speaker after speaker said they opposed the plan and many called for the United States to adopt a nuclear weapons-free foreign policy. Local government officials in support of DOE's plans were to attend an evening hearing.
Critics also said they feared the changes were a waste of millions of dollars that could be better spent on the nation's homeless and cleaning up the environment.
"The complex transformation plan takes a shortsighted approach to our security and assumes that the United States will need to maintain and upgrade nuclear weapons arsenals indefinitely," said Martin Fleck, a coordinator for the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World. "This is Cold War thinking from a prior century."
DOE official Theodore Wyka said it was the first of 18 public hearings to be held in Tennessee, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Washington, D.C., over the next several weeks.
He said the agency expects to get between 50,000 and 100,000 comments on the plan, which was proposed in December.
"This sort of kicks up the public debate," Wyka said.
When DOE announced the plan, officials said the reorganization plan would ultimately cost taxpayers less money, since it is designed to support the Bush administration's plans to reduce the overall stockpile of nuclear weapons by 2012.
The consolidation includes federal research laboratories and other sites involved in nuclear stockpile stewardship and warhead dismantlement.
The proposal also must go through formal environmental reviews.
While none of the eight major facilities will be closed, about 600 buildings or structures will be closed or shifted to non-weapons activities and two testing facilities supporting weapons labs will be shuttered.
Tom Clements of the Friends of the Earth environmental advocacy group from Columbia, said he was worried the plan was not an actual "downsizing" of the government's nuclear weapons systems.
"My concern is that the money will be sucked away from the need to spend money on the environmental cleanup," Clements said. "My fear is that a big influx of money will go into rebuilding the weapons complex and it will take away any money for the cleanup."
http://www.thestate.com/312/story/323827.html
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