Two years after a St. Louis-area school was closed following reports of radioactive contamination, Missouri lawmakers are laying groundwork for new state laws about risks from legacy nuclear-weapons, according to a statement by the Missouri House Speaker Rep. Dean Plocher (R).
The eight-member Special Interim Committee on the Impact of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Programs on Missouri will first meet on Oct. 15 in St. Peters, Mo. The committee planned to conduct an investigation of those affected by radioactive contamination from legacy nuclear weapons, summarize its findings in a report and use the report as the basis for a bill or bills to be debated in the state’s 2025 legislative session, which begins Jan. 8.
An October 2022 report by Boston Chemical Data Corp. found that radiological contamination near Jana Elementary School, which sits close to the Coldwater Creek in Hazelwood, Mo., exceeded standards of the Environmental Protection Agency. The school closed following the report and, less than a year later, announced it would not reopen.
Leaders in the House Armed Services Committee and its seapower subcommittee on Oct. 3 sent a letter to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro with several pointed questions on how much the Navy knows about and plans to deal with faulty welds on Navy ships, including Columbia-class nuclear-tipped ballistic missile submarines, performed by Huntington Ingalls Industries and recovery plans.
Last month, HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) publicly revealed it told the government about these purposeful but seemingly not malicious faulty welds on aircraft arrears and submarines. In their letter, House Armed Services Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) as well as the subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces chairman Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) and and ranking member Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) said they wanted to learn about any risks related to the weld work.
“The Department of Defense needs to immediately provide our committee with answers and a plan for how both you and Huntington Ingalls Industries-Newport News (HII-NNS) will protect U.S. Navy vessels against knowingly faulty work,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “Absolute transparency with Congress is essential.” A version of this story first appeared in Exchange Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese deterrence organization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing survivors, won the 2024 Nobel peace prize.
Founded in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that is using witness testimonies of its survivors in effort to achieve total disarmament of nuclear weapons worldwide, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s website.
Consolidated Nuclear Security seeks parties interested in a contract for building and delivering a glovebox and integrated hood for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to an expression of interest posted on sam.gov.
Responses are due no later than Oct. 30, according to the expression of interest. Consolidated Nuclear Security will use responses to craft a request for proposal.
Obituary
Former Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), who as a leader of the House Appropriations Committee helped shape Department of Energy nuclear programs for nearly 20 years, died Sunday at 87, media reported this week.
Hobson retired in 2008 after nine terms in the House of Representatives. He eventually rose to become the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development subcommittee.
Hobson had the leadership post on the appropriations panel for six years. During his time in Congress, he supported the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and opposed the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, Reliable Replacement Warhead and Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication programs. Also in Congress, Hobson helped require the mandatory recompete of DOE contracts that had not been subject to competition for 50 years.
