Uncle Sam must have it in for us.</p><p>First, there was talk that terror detainees might be moved to Fort Leavenworth.</p><p>Now we&rsquo;re hearing that the federal complex on Bannister Road is one of seven facilities in line to become the central depository for much of the nation&rsquo;s mercury.</p><p>Yes, that shiny, viscous element that some of us played with as kids before learning it could cause brain damage.</p><p>Not everyone is thrilled at the idea of semitrucks delivering as many as 10,000 metric tons of the nasty stuff to the Bannister facility in coming years.</p><p>Neighbors are anxious, Kansas City Council members outraged. U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver vows to keep KC off the Department of Energy&rsquo;s final list.</p><p>Emotions are likely to boil over at a public hearing set for this month. But I wouldn&rsquo;t get too excited.</p><p>By my reckoning, it&rsquo;s highly unlikely mercury will be stockpiled in a federal building along that busy road in south KC.</p><p>Two reasons:</p><p>No. 1, the five other federal facilities under consideration are all better suited because of their remote location or because they already handle toxic wastes.</p><p>What&rsquo;s a little mercury to the 586-square-mile Hanford nuclear site in Washington state when it already has 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive water in its inventory?</p><p>Then there&rsquo;s this: Of the seven sites, only one is not owned by the government but by a company. And that firm, Texas-based Waste Control Specialists, actually wants the stuff.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s my understanding that we&rsquo;re the only one in private industry that&rsquo;s expressed an interest,&rdquo; says company spokesman Tom Jones.</p><p>The Department of Energy won&rsquo;t say publicly how Kansas City made the list. But speaking on background, an official directly involved in the process said that government bureaucrats were instructed to nominate federal sites that fit certain criteria.</p><p>Waste Control Specialists filed a formal expression of interest. Jones says the company is looking to expand the range of toxic materials it treats, stores or disposes of at its 1,300-acre facility outside Andrews, Texas.</p><p>Already the list includes medical waste, asbestos and PCBs. </p><p>The site near the Texas-New Mexico border is remote, and there&rsquo;s no groundwater beneath the red clay to contaminate.</p><p> What&rsquo;s more, the company has widespread community support. When Waste Control Specialists applied for state permission to dispose of low-level radioactive waste, Andrews city officials saw it as a job-creation effort.</p><p>In other words, KC would seem to have nothing to worry about &mdash; assuming the government can be trusted to do the right thing. Yeah, well, there&rsquo;s that.