OCR Text |
Show ip irei lurel itfi ll Slate if llilf ill Ii M ifelf By GARY R. BLODGETT BOUNTIFUL There was not much opposition, just a lot of information gathering, gather-ing, as Brig. Gen. Forrest McCartney told a gathering of the Wasatch Front Regional Council updated plans for proposed installation instal-lation of an MX Missile site in western Utah and eastern Nevada. GEN. McCARTNEY is vice commander of the Ballistics Missile Office at Norton AFB. Calif., and a spokesman for the Pentagon Pen-tagon regarding the MX Missile Program. Unlike the public hearing held Thursday night at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, where more than 700 persons voiced opposition oppo-sition to the proposed missile project, the meeting at Bountiful City Hall was more of an information-gathering meeting with little lit-tle opposition expressed by the crowd that jammed into City Hall Council Chambers. GEN. McCARTNEY told the group that although the proposed project had been in the planning stage for more than ten years. Air Force officials are just beginning the first draft of an environmental impact statement state-ment showing the potential impact of the proposed area and Utah in general. The sits will cover ab.uii 22.1HH) square miles in an area of Utah ranging from Mil-ford Mil-ford to Delta and all of east-central Nea-da. Nea-da. Utah w ould encompass about one-third of the proposed site while Nevada would include the remaining two-thirds. IN UTAH, the proposed underground project could extend northward to within 50 miles of the Wasatch Front (Pros o area). the general said. However, exactly where the missiles w ill be located within the proposed prop-osed site is still not determined. The underground missile "racetracks." pods and shelters will be constructed throughout a vast network of valleys and flatlands in the desolate area of Utah and Nevada. There will be 34 valleys in Nevada and 13 valleys in Utah from w hich the missiles mis-siles can be launched. LOCATED IN these valleys will be 200 clusters to accommodate the 200 MX Missiles Mis-siles in the underground area. Each cluster will be four to six miles w ide and 15 to 20 miles long. There will be 23 shelters for protection of the missiles located in each of the 200 clusters clus-ters a total of 4. MK) shelters, the general explained. Each shelter will be approximately approxi-mately 7.000 feet from the nearest shelter, thus requiring a "direct hit" by an enemy missile to destroy any shelter. THE MISSILES 71 feet long. 92 inches in diameter and weighing 200.0(H) pounds will be "rotated" along the racetrack-type racetrack-type circuit at various time schedules so that the enemy will be unaware at which shelter the missile is being housed. "It would take 2.3 missiles average to knock out any one of our missiles and the enemy doesn't have that man for deployment deploy-ment that we know of." the general said. HE EXPLAINED that the missiles w ill be rotated around the very sophisticated and intricate circuit at speeds of on! v about five miles per hour but their transfer will be of the most "top secret" and there w ill always be missiles in the shelters ready for firing at all times. The general did not intentionally evade but he did not otherwise explain the destructive power that each MX Missile will have. AFTER THE meeting, the general told this reporter that each MX Missile will have ten warheads (thus the name MXl and each of the ten warheads w ill have the destructive des-tructive power equivalent to at least one megaton or one million tons of TNT. This means that each missile will have the potential destructive power 15 times that of 'he atomic bombs dropped during World War II. (See column. Page 2l. "I HOPE AND pray and w c had better all hope and pray that this MX system is never used." the general said. "Lor those few who might survive, life won't be worth living." Meanwhile, the general explained, only a small fraction of the land being used for the entire missile project will be restricted to use other than w hut it is already being used. "THE LAND w ill continue to be used lor grazing, farminc. mining, recreation, etc.. the general said. "Also, only about live percent of all land proposed for the project is on private land. The vast majority is public pub-lic (state and federal! property." The general said that if all environmental studies can be completed in time, it is planned plan-ned that the first land be obtained in early 1982 and construction for the first ten missiles mis-siles would begin the following year. It would then lake several y ears lo complete. ALTHOUGH CURRENT plans arc that railroad tracks would be used lo transport the missiles. Gen. McCartney said thai this proposal is being rcslmlicd and that it's possible that hard-surfaced roads, rather than tracks would be used. "But this would not in any way change the overall plan or structure of the project." pro-ject." the general said. ASKED WHY Utah was picked as the priority site, the general explained that the Utah-Nevada region best lit the "cnteria" of the Air Force lor this type of project. "Of course the site has to be in a desolate area, but an area with ample water supply : located inland (not close to a border or shoreline): must be in a low density (populated) (popu-lated) area: and must he close to utilities (water, power, etc. I." the general said. AT THE same lime, the general explained, ex-plained, the site must he reasonably close lo manufacturing sites for steel, sand, gravel, etc.. that w ill be used extensively in the underground project. Gen. McCartney said that between 1982 and I9K9. when the project will be under construction, there will be 75.000 lo 85.000 additional personnel living in the area. I his figure will be reduced to about 55. (MM) when the project becomes operational. MOST OF these personnel will be located lo-cated at four proposed operating bases in the Milford area of Utah, the general noted. Other operating bases are being considered in the Delta area. |