Less Need for Nuclear Fuel = 1,100 Fewer Good Union Jobs in Kentucky

The sooner the nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapon industry fall onto the trash heap of history where they belong, the happier I'll be.

And you can't tell me there's not one single American entrepreneur out there in need of 1,100 highly-skilled, experienced workers living a stone's throw from the Mighty Mississippi.

James R. Carroll and Tom Loftus at the Courier:

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Western Kentucky, which for six decades has enriched uranium for nuclear power plants, is shutting down at the end of the month — and taking with it up to 1,100 jobs, officials announced Friday.

SNIP

Payroll tax revenues from the plant provide McCracken County with about $1 million, or about 4 percent of its budget, he said.“It’s very devastating to our plant, to our workers and to our community and region,” said Jim Key, vice president of United Steelworkers Local 550, which represents 580 workers at the facility.

“These are highly skilled, well-trained, safety-conscious workers. And there are virtually no jobs out there in this region for our workers to obtain now.”

Hey, here's a idea:  hire those 1,100 workers who know how to handle nuclear material to ... wait for it ... clean up the radioactive and toxic pollution from the plant's decades of operation.

The Paducah facility has been enriching uranium since 1952, first for use in nuclear weapons and later for nuclear power plants.

While the plant will stop enriching uranium, the site will remain the focus of extensive environmental cleanup for many years. The byproducts of enrichment over decades have produced widespread radiological and chemical contamination.



A Courier-Journal series in 2000 revealed that waterways, underground water, soil, plants and animals had been contaminated with some of the most dangerous chemicals known, including plutonium and dioxin.



“We will certainly work hard to keep the funding up” for the cleanup, (McCracken Judge-Executive Van) Newberry said.

 Did somebody say "infrastructure spending?"