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Show M site for GE Biissils clear warfare. Hecker said a decision on where to put the missile will be made in the summer of 1980. He said the decision de-cision to be made by the Department of Defense, will come after full public hearings. hear-ings. "If we have our way, the MX missile will be deployed right here," he said. A 14,000 square mile corridor cor-ridor running from Ely to Caliente and stretching into the western counties of Utah is the U.S. Air Force's No. 1 site for the MX Missle, residents were told recently. Brigadier General Guy Hecker Jr., appearing at the Chamber ofCommerce's annual meeting, told about 200 residents that this region re-gion meets all of the Air Force's criteria for a nuclear nu-clear missile base. He said the Department of Defense has surveyed every part of the country and the search has been narrowed to this area as number 1, with another site in Arizona and New Mexico still under consideration. "We looked at every area in the country. This one meets the criteria best." OSome of the features the Air Force was looking for were lack of population, large amounts of federal land and suitable soil, including a deep water table, flat terrain, ter-rain, and a quality described as unproductive lands. The base would take years to build and would require up to 22,000 workers; 12,-000 12,-000 employees would remain on the payroll after the installation in-stallation was built; the cost of the project would range from $21 billion to $29 billion bil-lion in 1978 dollars; about one third of the employees would be civillian; and the most pertinent fact as far as many local residents were concerned, 3,000 to 4,000 of those permanent employees employ-ees would be based in Ely. "What we're looking at is basically everything between Ely and Caliente and over into Utah. Although the Air Force says the base would require 14,000 square miles, an area roughly equal in size to the states of Massachusetts and Connecticutt combined, the public would be denied access ac-cess to only 25 square miles. The 25 square miles would be the total acreage involved in 4,500 2 12 acre fenced plots which would be the actual ac-tual missile silos. Each silo would be connected in a massive road grid system. The concept of the MS missile mis-sile would involve shuffling 200 weapons between the 4,500 silos so the Soviets would never know where they were. "As far as we're concerned, concern-ed, you could farm and ranch right up to the fence. And if we found a viable mineral deposit at one of the sites, we'd consider moving it so it could be mined," he said. The main problem from his perspective is that the project would bring hordes of construction workers into Eastern Nevada who would not be permanent residents. He said the Air Force would be more than willing to assist as-sist this area in the planning plan-ning and building phases that precede the on -rush. The most common question ques-tion asked dealt with whether the MX installation would make Eastern Nevada a bullseye in the event of a nuclear attack. He reasoned that it would not, and said in fact it would make this area less likely to suffer the effects of nu-' |
