Twenty-one years after the Pentagon shut down an ammunition plant in the suburban Kansas City, Kansas area, the environmental cleanup is behind schedule. And it’s costing millions more to make sure the former Sunflower plant will be available for development.
According to a report in the Kansas City Star, the Kansas congressional delegation wants to see a faster cleanup of the nearly 9,000 acre site that covers an estimated 15 square miles. The plant in some ways is very similar to Oklahoma’s McAlester Army Ammunition Plant that is active in producing bombs and other ammunition.
The plant site is located in Johnson County and was built in 1941. Over the years, it become contaminated as the plant produced artillery shells during World War II and rocket propellants in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The Army ran out of money to finish the environmental cleanup and let the closed plant sit idle for nearly 5 years before resuming work three years ago. The military says some of the land could be ready for development by 2021 or 2022.
However, Johnson County Commissioners and the Kansas Congressional delegation fear the entire site won’t be ready by 2028.
“This has drug on a very long time,” U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, told Lt. Gen. Gwendolyn Bingham at an April 26 Senate hearing on military construction. “The Army apparently will be at Sunflower for another decade cleaning up the site. It’s just such a long haul.”
The site was visited May 2 b y Army officials from Washington. One of them, Tom Lederle, chief of the Army’s base realignment and closure division told Kansas officials, ‘There has been progress made. It’s not all bad news.”
He indicated that at least 1,200 acres of the former plant could be available for development by 2020. Until then, workers must decontaminate sewers where the explosive contaminants were deposited. They also have to focus on building foundation removal and deal with lead, metals,oil, lubricants and other hazards.
