Kimmy Igla discusses the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) published by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the Department of Energy (DOE) for the production of new plutonium pits for nuclear weapons at six different sites in the US, one of which is the Kansas City National Security Campus, which has a controversial history. You are invited to review the PEIS available at pitpeis.com and submit written comments up to July 16, as described in pwkc.org/Plutonium.Ms. Igla is a leader with PeaceWorks Kansas City and Physicians for Social Responsibility KC. She currently serves on the board of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and is a founding member of the No Nukes KC Coalition.Ms. Igla was a leader in organizing a May 6 workshop to coach humans on the best way to write comments responding to this PEIS. Help with that May 6 session came in part from Dr. Chanese Forté of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), who discussed their research summarized in their testimony at the May 7 public comment hearing in Kansas City concerning the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the production of new plutonium pits for nuclear bombs. An expert in environmental toxicology, they discuss the history of toxicants found at the Kansas City nuclear weapons plant and what new pit production could mean for the future of Kansas City and humanity.BackgroundDr. C.A. Forté is a scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program specializing in environmental toxicology and epidemiology. Their work with UCS focuses on the health and well-being of communities affected by nuclear weapons mining, exposure, and the threat of exposure. Prior to this, they worked at the US Navy and Marine Corps as a deployment health epidemiologist researching active service member deployability and the environmental impacts of the US Norfolk Naval Hospital.Dr. Forté has a PhD in Environmental Health Sciences and a second PhD in Scientific Computing from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Prior to pursuing their doctorate, they earned a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Georgia, with a focus on epidemiology and biostatistics. They recently lent this expertise to Kansas Citians at a May 6 information session to help citizens prepare to give public comment on the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the production of new plutonium pits, the softball-sized radioactive cores of nuclear bombs.On 2024-09-30 US District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the DOE's semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives including environmental impact before proceeding with their plan to produce plutonium pits at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This decision culminated several years of litigation.Written comments invited until July 16 Written comments can be submitted up to July 16 by email to [email protected]. Include the document number: DOE/EIS-0573 with your submission. Their draft EIS is available at "https://pitpeis.com". While DOE is officially required to respond to all comments they receive, their conclusion may not otherwise be impacted unless the US Congress decides to change the program, e.g., by enacting legislation changing the mission from producing new nuclear weapons to accelerating the transition to renewable energy, as discussed by Wallis (2023) Warheads to Windmills (Indispensable Press). This would simultaneously reduce threats associated with global warming while also reducing the power of Iran and the fossil fuel industry over the global economy. This is discussed further on pwkc.org/eis.In person hearings Public comment hearings on the environmental impact are being held in five cities across the US with ties to nuclear weapons manufacturing, May 5, 7, 12, 14, and 20. Kansas City is one of those five. The Kansas City public comment hearing was May 7 at the Hillcrest Community Center. Eighty percent of the non-nuclear parts for US nuclear weapons are produced at the Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) operated by Honeywell.Dr. Forté was one of about 40 speakers who gave comments at the hearing. All opposed the NNSA's goal of new pit production. Dr. Forté explains their issues with the draft PEIS. This includes the lack of transparent information about Kansas City's involvement in the pit program and the cumulative impact to all sites concerned.Though there has been no mention of the Kansas City plant directly handling plutonium, there are still a number of other environmental toxins the final PEIS needs to and does not adequately address.It was revealed that over 2,400 contaminants were present at Kansas City's former nuclear weapons plant at the Bannister Federal Complex which was shut down and replaced by the National Security Campus on Botts Road in 2014. News reports have documented serious health concerns and premature deaths among former employees who were exposed to toxins while working at the Kansas City plant. The Kansas City Defender recently interviewed one of those workers, Maurice Copeland, who also testified at the May 7 hearing.With the NNSA's budget for the Kansas City plant being doubled and money appropriated specifically for "pit production" despite the DOE's claims Kansas City will not be directly involved, Dr. Forté and others who attended the hearing are rightfully concerned: what will this new plutonium pit program mean for KCNSC workers and residents in the surrounding area?Dr. Forté is interviewed by Spencer Gravescoppyright 2026 Chanese Forté and Spencer Graves, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 international license.