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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1981)
ii g Page 2B THE BATTALION MONDAY. JANUARY 19, 1981 MX missile sites draw residents’ cheers, protests United Press International COYOTE SPRING, Nev. — Unaccustomed ac tion is bustling these days at Judy’s, a boarded-up desert brothel closed a couple of years ago by a referendum of the voters of Lincoln County. And it’s bringing a varied response. The U. S. Air Force is using Judy’s as a base to drill for water considered vital to the success of its plan to base a new arsenal of MX intercontinental missiles on thousands of square miles of desert. An old sign on the prefabricated structure en closed by a wire fence says, “Welcome, fellows.” But another, newer one admonishes, “No girls working. Keep out.” The fellows at Judy’s these days come only to operate the drilling equipment parked out back. They leave before sundown. If they drive south at 55 miles per hour, they can be on the glittering strip of casinos in Las Vegas an hour later. North of Judy’s, and to the east and west, are small desert towns deeply divided over whether the mis sile system should be deployed over an area roughly the size of Michigan in the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah. One of those towns is Alamo, Nev., a collection of modest houses and house trailers surrounded by some of the world’s most spectacularly beautiful scenery — an awesome expanse of desert broken by brown hills that jut into a sky of the clearest blue. Clark Hardy, 30, a Mormon raised in Alamo and chairman of the town board, generally favors the Air Force plan, which he believes will bring prosperity to the region. “Most people in the community are very wary of the MX,” acknowledged Hardy, a builder. “My atti tude is that if it is going to happen we need to plan ahead so we don’t get hurt. What people fear most is that it will take the water we have and cause our wells and springs to go dry. ” But Hardy said, “When it’s finished, I think it will be good for the community.” Many of the 800 or so residents of Alamo, about a third of whom are Mormons, do not share Hardy’s optimism. “There are some people who worry that we would become a target and about accidental detonation,” said Hardy, who has just won election to the Lincoln County Commission. “I don’t.” Alamo, which boasts a bustling tungsten mine owned by Union Carbide, already has undergone something of a mining boom, but Hardy does not worry that more workers, as well as Air Force per sonnel, are likely to stream into Alamo, once the heart of a ranching and farming community. “I think the Air Force people will be good for the community,” he said. “The Air Force has promised all kinds of aid.” An hour’s drive north is the town of Caliente. At a ranch on the outskirts of Caliente, Connie Simians edits the Lincoln County Record, a weekly newspap er vigorously opposing the Air Force plan. “I don’t think it’s the best military answer and I don’t think it’s the best way to spend the taxpayers’ money,” said Simkins. “My relatives were running cattle here in Dry Lake Valley in 1862,” said Simkins, a representative of the Nevada Cattlemens’ Association. “They were Mormon pioneers.” Simkins did not campaign in the referendum to close Judy’s but she cares deeply about keeping the missiles out of the region. “Basically, I’m not opposed to legalized prosti- tuion,” she said. “I think prostitution is a necessary evil. ” But she sees the MX missile as a decidedly un necessary evil in the Great Basin. “It’s just a giant public works project," she said. “Generally in this area anybody worth anything already has a job. The mines are working. ” Simkins, who works for the “Sagebrush Rebellion” which seeks to turn over vast federal lands in the West to the states, said, “This is the best place in the world to raise kids.” She believes the influx of workers could change that, bringing crime and other problems to a peaceful community. “The Alaska pipeline brought in five people for every one job available,” she said. “Our city and county governments would be too heavily bur dened.” There is a dissenting opinion from behind the bar at Shenanigans, a Caliente saloon, where Joyce Boyce serves drinks to men more likely to work in mines or for the railroad than own cattle spreads. “I’m all for it,” said Boyce. “It’s fantastic. It’s going to help a lot of these little towns to expand. ” Boyce said if the missiles come, the Amtrak pas senger train will stop in Caliente instead of speeding right through town southward to Las Vegas. “That would be good for the old people,” she said, referring to those who came to Caliente to retire because of the clean air, good weather and lower prices in the area. Ecology, business, Air Force at odds in Nevada desert Wesley Holt, a Mormon who runs Caliente s small department store, opposes the Air Force plan. Andra Farmer, a Catholic who sells leather goods in the shop next door, favors it. “I don’t think it’s a religious issue at all,” said Holt, who described business at his store as “very good.” “This place needs the MX,” said Farmer, who anticipates a real estate boom. “The Mormons don’t want the MX,” she said. “They have all the business tied up so they can run things the way they want.” Holt said, “I would rather it not come here. I’m not sure we’re big enough to handle it. We’d like to be patriotic but we’d like to know what the effects would Bob Murdock, a Mormon who runs the pharamacy across the street, said, “Right now, I don’t believe it will get off the ground. I’m for growth, but from a military standpoint, I think there are better ways to do it.” So, evidently, does President-elect Ronald Reagan, the man who ultimately will decide the fate of MX and who during his campaign lambasted “that fantastic plan of the (Carter) administration to take thousands of square miles out of the western states.” Opposing the plan during his debate in Baltimore with independent presidential candidate John Anderson, Reagan said, “We need the missile, I think, because we lack a deterrent to a possible first assault but I am not in favor of the plan that is so costly.” The Air Force estimates the system will cost $34 billion, although other estimates climbed to $108 billion. The program would construct 4,600 horizontal shelters among which 200 missiles would be moved from time to time so the Soviet Union could not determine where they were. The Air Force conceded last month, after a $17 million study, that the system would have a “signifi cant” environmental impact in the western sites, but said all effects were manageable and the system should be built. The 1,900-page study acknowledged fears that what may be the biggest man-made project in history will bring an influx of workers that would change dramatically the human environment and affect wild life, water supplies and air quality. Representatives of 13 environmental organiza tions responded immediately to the study by stating the MX meant “unparalleled environmental destruc tion” and urged Reagan “to give serious considera tion to canceling the MX program.” The Air Force, however, has pressed ahead, selecting the tiny town of Milford, Utah, and a site near the closed brothel at Coyote Spring as first choices for air bases of 17,000 and 13,000 military personnel each. The bases would maintain and control the missiles as they moved on flatbed trucks in a giant shell game among the underground shelters linked by 8,000 miles of roads over desert land. The Air Force listed alternate sites in New Mexico and Texas but the first-choice sites are on land owned almost entirely by the federal government and, according to the study, could more easily absorb the impact of sudden population growth. Indians, whose ancestors once owned all of the land in question, believe they have not been adequ ately consulted about the Air Force plan. “Without water our fields would turn to dust,” said Tribal Chief Preston Tom at the Moapa Indian Reser vation. “Our cattle would die.” The 300 Paiutes who live on the reservation run cattle, raise grain and grow tomatoes, irrigating from a small stream they call Muddy River. “We know about the drilling for water the Air Force has been doing and we know that they have found some water,” said Tom. “What we’re worried about is that they may have found the same water that feeds Muddy River.” Philbert Swain, 38, the Indian business manager of the reservation, said, “They give us no guarantees that our water will continue to flow." Swain, a U. S. Army veteran, said he is not worried about a nuclear accident or that the reservation would be in a target area. “I have stood right here in front of my house and watched the mushroom clouds from the explosions at the Atomic Test Site, ” he said. “Why worry at) something you can’t stop? We’re concerned 1 there’s nothing we can do. If the government to put the MX here, they will do it.” Govs. Scott M. Matheson of Utah and Robert of Nevada both have assailed the Air Forced environmental impact statement on the MX. Matheson said the document provided a “g inadequate estimate of the required construes force.” List, expressing “deep concern and a sion,” said the study had “cracks” in it challenged the estimates of the workers r the project. The Nevada governor said the Air F» should do more work on the study. Unfazed, Air Force Undersecretary Antoi Chayes insists fears of the system are “rnuchexagg ated” and that its impact on the Great Basin will “not negligible but certainly manageable.” Reagan’s advisers agree on the need for the misi but challenge the horizontal basing. They the missiles should be placed in upright silos s moved from time to time from one launching holt another. They say this simpler plan would cut pm ram costs by 30 percent. The primary purpose of the system is to mainti survivability of America’s land-based interconfe tal ballistic missiles in the face of increasing ptm and accuracy of Russian rockets. The people who live in the Great Basin in Ne« and Utah know the cost of doing that cannot 1 measured just in dollars. The Air Force acknowledges there would beai population growth of up to 85,000 at peak constn tion, settling to a 31,000 increase for the long! operation of the system. Rural counties would experience severe problems. Land values would shoot up. In non-MX areas there could be shortages of go#i services and skilled labor. The Air Force acknowledges that a housing sk tage would be “a major problem” in growth areasi that health service problems could become critic The Air Force report mentions change that alter lifestyles. A guard at Judy’s, the boarded-up brothel Coyote Spring, put it this way: “If they put the)i in, Judy’s might be able to open up again." Texan, South Korea arrange rice deal United Press International DALLAS — A Lubbock rice dealer, who prom ised to sell South Korea 200,000 tons of southern rice at nearly 10 percent below the world market price, must put up a $4.5 million performance bond guaranteeing delivery or lose the deal. John F. Herzer is pledged to sell 200,000 tons of southern, medium grain rice to South Korea for $449.90, or $50 a ton below current prices. If Herzer manages to find rice at the lower price. which some industry sources doubt, it will be the jSrstsak: to South Korea since that country’s Octo ber agreement to buy a million tons of U.S. rice within a year’s time. Herzer’s deal is being watched closely in agri cultural circles because American rice growers have accused South Korea of ducking its commit ment to the U.S. government in order to buy cheaper rice from Japan, a story in the Dallas Times Herald said Thursday. The sources claim the South Koreans are stall ing in hopes mounting storage costs will force exporters and rice millers along the Gulf Coast to cut prices. The controversy about South Korean rice sales could threaten an April agreement between the U.S. and Japan in which the Japanese agreed to limit commercial rice exports to an average of 350,000 tons per year, except in emergencies, the newspaper reported. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooc. 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