Local firm has plan for Trump’s wall
North Hills company envisions a trench filled with nuclear waste cells bordered by railroad
Move aside, Uber and Google: Another technology firm is creating buzz for Pittsburgh.
Clayton Industries, established nine years ago in the North Hills, has attracted national attention for proposing to use nuclear waste in President Donald Trump’s proposed barrier between the United States and Mexico.
According to published accounts, Clayton’s plans for the barrier include a chain-link fence on the Mexico side, with sensors and a trench, at least 100 feet deep and lined with “holding cells for nuclear waste processing.” Beyond the trench will be a set of railroad tracks and a 30-foot-high wall. The design also envisions a waste-to-energy power plant, the electricity from which would be distributed along a “microgrid” mounted on the wall.
The design is among those submitted last week to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection request for ideas to protect the 2,000-mile border. The requirements include a barrier at least 18 feet tall, with protection against tunneling.
Clayton’s use of nuclear waste has drawn attention from national media outlets including the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal. But in response to an email from the Post-Gazette, a man identifying himself as “Clayton” said, “I'm confused why you and the other Pittsburgh media outlets are inquiring about the border wall proposal. A scaled down version of the waste to energy technology with supplemental microgrid framework (used for the border wall) was offered to the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County through a pilot program over a year ago.”
The email urged the paper to “inquire why the proposal and innovative technology was shelved or not disclosed to the media and taxpayers. The border wall project, along other cities who have expressed interest with Clayton Industries technology here stateside are the main focus moving forward.”
A follow-up request for further information received no response. But state records show the company was incorporated in 2008, with Chris Clayton as president and a three-bedroom Franklin Park ranch house as its business address. On its website, the company says it “develops and matures existing technologies for the
aerospace, defense, energy, material science, and waste industries.”
Amie Downs, a spokeswoman for Allegheny County, said she could not confirm that the county had received a proposal from the firm. Tim McNulty, a spokesman for Mayor Bill Peduto, said he was not familiar with the company. But records and officials confirm that Clayton has approached area municipalities.
In March 2016, municipal records suggest Mr. Clayton appeared before a Jefferson Hills’ Borough Council meeting. According to council minutes, he asked officials to sell him a slate wash dump for $1 so he could "make the property a research and development program to restore industrial polluted sites here in Allegheny County.”
“We didn't understand where he was coming from,” said Linda Essey, a borough secretary. The council did not pursue the proposal.
In September, Mr. Clayton appeared at a Union Township Board of Supervisors meeting, proposing that the Washington County community acquire the former Elrama power plant property. As the meeting’s minutes describe the proposal, Mr. Clayton intended “to convert the plant to a prototype waste-to-energy plant using proprietary technology.”
The board opted not to pursue the idea.
Some in the national press have expressed wariness about Clayton’s wall design. Popular Mechanics called it a “crazy idea,” while a Vice magazine website noted that millions of people live along the border, and quoted a University of Arizona professor concerned that nearby water sources would be at risk of contamination.
At least one other wall design has local roots. Pittsburgh-based J.M. Design Studio offered a half-dozen suggestions that appear to function mostly as conceptual-art projects: erecting 3 million hammocks, deploying “a wall of artists redrawing borders” and installing “nearly 10 million pipe organs,” interspersed by archways. The gaps would allow migrants to cross in either direction, “but not before sitting down to play a … tune.”
Artist Jennifer Meridian said she and two co-creators, Leah Patgorski and Tereneh Mosley, submitted the concept “as a poetic gesture to provide a counterpoint” to the “exclusionary” impetus behind the wall. “It was also a way to have fun creating absurdist proposals.” The designs have also attracted national media attention, and Ms. Meridian said “it’s exciting to see it have a life outside of our own enjoyment.”
Even so, she added, “I’m so jealous of the Clayton Industries proposal. It’s even more absurd than ours.”