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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.
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