By AP/St. Louis Public Radio
Kansas City, Mo. – A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled this week at a site in Kansas City where parts for nuclear weapons will be made. However workers at the new plant will not handle radioactive material.
Honeywell plans to employ 2,100 people there; the facility will replace an older one at the Bannister Federal Complex.
That plant already produces 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts that go into a typical weapon.
The new facility will be the nation's only privately-developed plant that makes nuclear weapon components.
Anti-nuclear activists plan to protest at Wednesday's groundbreaking.
They tried to get the Obama administration to block the proposal. But Obama has said the nation will maintain its existing nuclear arsenal.