Advocacy Groups Host Free Screenings of Nuclear Waste Documentary ‘To Use a Mountain’ in Parsons and Kansas City

Kim Barker
20 hours ago
4 min read

Director Casey Carter will conduct Q&A as regional communities confront new nuclear projects, weapons production, and questions of public consent

PARSONS, Kan. / KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Community advocacy organizations in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma are teaming up to host free public screenings of the award-winning documentary, “To Use a Mountain,” in order to highlight the growing push for nuclear energy throughout the Tri-State region.

The documentary will be screened at 7:30pm on Saturday, July 11 at the Municipal Theater, 112 S. 17th St. in Parsons, Kan. and at 7pm on Sunday, July 12 at the Stray Cat Film Center, 1662 Broadway Blvd. in Kansas City, Mo. Director Casey Carter will conduct a Q&A session following the film at each location.

Southeast Kansas and Kansas City face separate but connected nuclear flashpoints amid a broader federal push to accelerate nuclear energy and weapons programs.

Deep Fission, a California-based company, has proposed an underground nuclear reactor at the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, promoted in part as an energy solution for data centers and other large power users. The project’s secrecy and quick launch has raised community concerns about safety, oversight, waste, and public consent. The pilot project, which broke ground on December 9, came at a shock to residents, who weren’t aware of the project until seeing media reports announcing the event a few days prior.

The Kansas film screening is hosted by LEAD Agency, Inc., Prairie Dog Alliance, and PeaceWorks Kansas City in response to the Deep Fission project. Local Environmental Action Demanded (LEAD) Agency, Inc., an environmental justice organization formed in 1997 in Miami, Oklahoma, seeks to raise awareness about the effects of contamination on human health and the environment.

“LEAD Agency organized to fight for environmental justice and stopping the nuclear power industry’s encroachment into small communities around the country may be the most important fight of our lifetime,” said Rebecca Jim, executive director.”

Prairie Dog Alliance, of Independence, Kan., is a grassroots community coalition working to ensure decisions about high-consequence industrial projects are made with the public—not around the public.

PeaceWorks Kansas City is a nonprofit organization working to create a healthy world of justice and peace without war and its weapons. In Kansas City, organizers have been working to mobilize around federal hearings on expanded plutonium pit production and are challenging the city’s role in the nuclear weapons complex, including the Kansas City National Security Campus and the broader push to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The Missouri screening is hosted by the No Nukes KC Coalition, a coalition of local organizations including chapters of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Veterans for Peace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and PeaceWorks Kansas City.

About the film

Released in 2025, “To Use A Mountain” follows six rural American communities that were studied in the 1980s as possible burial sites for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Moving through landscapes, archives, testimony, geology, and memory, the film examines how federal nuclear decisions impact human lives and how communities resisted, organized and insisted on being heard.

The film speaks to not only the enduring questions of environmental justice and American history, but also the pressures currently facing residents as new energy, defense, and data-center infrastructure is advanced in the name of national necessity.

“‘To Use a Mountain’ presents a people’s history, in contrast to the technical and governmental history,” said director Casey Carter. “People’s homes, communities, and memories are reduced to technical analysis and utilitarian opportunities for the federal government and nuclear industry. The film is about nuclear waste, yes, but it’s also about democracy, memory, land, and the people who are asked to inherit the consequences of decisions they did not make. Bringing the film to Parsons and Kansas City at this moment gives a renewed urgency to those questions and connects the voices in the film with the voices of the local community.”

More than 90,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel remain stored across the United States, with no permanent geologic repository in operation, and the amount growing by roughly 2,000 metric tons annually. The film elicits questions from the public about what happens when national nuclear ambitions become local responsibilities and when communities are asked to accept risks that may last for generations.

“This film is a masterpiece in showing how ordinary folks rose up in six rural communities to defend their families and land,” said Ann Suellentrop, vice chair of PeaceWorks Kansas City. “It shows the audacity of targeting these communities to dump the nation’s waste in places that had nothing to do with creating it, and it is particularly timely now with the rush to advance new nuclear energy plants and waste disposal schemes with little to no health and environmental safety regulations.”

Screening Details

Parsons, Kansas

“To Use a Mountain”

Saturday, July 11, 7:30pm

Municipal Theater, 112 S. 17th St., Parsons, KS 67357

Hosted by Prairie Dog Alliance, LEAD Agency, and PeaceWorks Kansas City Director Casey Carter present for Q&A

Kansas City, Missouri

“To Use a Mountain”

Sunday, July 12, 7pm

Stray Cat Film Center, 1662 Broadway Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64108

Hosted by No Nukes KC Coalition

Director Casey Carter present for Q&A