Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. FLEISCHMANN. To my colleagues in this great House, my name is Chuck Fleischmann. I represent the Third District of Tennessee, which has a great city. That city is Oak Ridge, the birthplace of the Manhattan Project.
My colleagues, Oak Ridge has a great history. We won the Cold War there, and we won World War II there, but this was a time that the Federal Government in the manufacturing of nuclear weapons was not as careful as it could have been. We didn't know. We had to win those wars--and we did--but as a result of that legacy, we have a problem.
Doc Hastings, my colleague from Washington, talked about the problem in Hanford--and there are 500 square miles in Hanford that need to be cleaned up--but in my community in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, there are populations of churches, schools, people all around in a highly condensed area. We have there, across the DOE complex, a tremendous legacy that needs to be cleaned up, and I want to talk about that briefly.
We've got nuclear waste that needs to be cleaned up across the complex, and that's being done. We also have a mercury problem. There is an estimated 2 million pounds of mercury in the soil and in the water. This is a real problem for American citizens. This is a Federal obligation to clean this legacy up. There is no question about that.
Across this great Nation, whether it's in Oak Ridge, at the Savannah River, in Hanford, or in Idaho, we have an obligation to the American people to clean this up. We won World War II and we won the Cold War, but we must do this. This waste is dangerous. It's expensive to clean these things up. It's not a matter of ``if''; it's a matter of ``when.'' The longer we take to do this, we expose the people in these communities all across America to the hazards of this nuclear waste.
So, Mr. Chairman, as an advocate for Oak Ridge and as an advocate for environmental cleanup, we must get this done. We have decades' worth of work to go. We have got to do this. As we honor Oak Ridge and other communities with a great national park, which is coming forward and which was voted for in this great House, we can never forget the legacy that's left behind. Environmental cleanup is a must. It is a Federal obligation.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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