Learn more :: Article Archives :: Los Alamos Will Move Nuclear Materials

Document says Los Alamos will move nuclear materials to Nevada
Associated Press, September 19, 2004

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Los Alamos National Laboratory plans within a year to remove all weapons-grade nuclear material from a part of the lab that has raised security concerns, according to an internal federal document.

The document from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which was obtained by the government watchdog group Project On Government Oversight in Washington, D.C., said the highly enriched uranium and plutonium would be moved to a facility at the Nevada Test Site starting this month.

The move would be complete by September 2005, the document says.

Pete Stockton, a senior investigator for POGO, characterized the document -- dated Aug. 20, 2004 -- as a final draft that outlines steps to coordinate the move of the nuclear materials and the work associated with them from Technical Area 18.

Stockton asserted it's the first time the NNSA has committed to moving all the weapons-grade material from the area by a certain date.

"We're still cautiously optimistic that this will happen," he said. "The problem is we've heard these things before and the proof is in the move."

NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the agency does not comment on draft documents but expressed bewilderment at POGO's reaction.

"POGO for months has been insisting that we are not going to move this material out of TA-18," Wilkes said. "... They've said it in front of Congress, they've told the media."

The agency, however, has maintained that it's on schedule to move the material, Wilkes said. He cited a March press release that said the agency would start shipping the first half of the TA-18 material to Nevada in September and that the effort was expected to last about 18 months.

"I don't know if this is a way (for POGO) to save face," Wilkes said.

My comment is the same thing I've been saying -- that we're going to move the material and that we're on track."

Lab spokeswoman Nancy Ambrosiano said workers have been moving nuclear materials out of TA-18 in preparation for the final move.

"The laboratory is actively supporting NNSA in this closure plan," she said.

Lab employees in TA-18 study nuclear materials to see how they will react in certain situations, they train Nuclear Emergency Search Teams and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and they support nonproliferation efforts, among other tasks, she said.

She said no lab employees have been moved from the site yet.

"The transition plan is so complicated so that the important work is not set aside, so that we are not in some way crippled," she said.

According to the document, some of the nuclear materials will be temporarily stored at Technical Area-55 in Los Alamos until they can shipped to Nevada. All the nuclear materials will be shipped to their final locations by March 2008, the document said.

Stockton, a former special security assistant to former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, said POGO is "somewhat concerned" about the nuclear materials being stored in TA-55, a part of the lab where plutonium is processed.

But, he said, "it certainly is a good deal better than TA-18."

Built in the 1940s, TA-18 is located at the bottom of a steep canyon, making it difficult to defend from attackers approaching on the canyon's rim.

Stockton recalled an October 2000 security exercise in which attackers could have detonated a bomb inside TA-18 that would have destroyed part of New Mexico.

"The material is just sitting out there for the taking," he said.

But lab officials have said the material is secure.

"The material is safe where it is, and we have demonstrated our ability" to protect it, lab director Pete Nanos said in an April interview with The Associated Press.

But, Nanos said, the costs of maintaining security at the site are high and keeping the materials there is not cost effective.

The NNSA document says the move will save the lab more than $100 million in future safeguards and security costs.

He said in April that a timeline hasn't been established, but that moving the materials "could start relatively quickly."

Associated Press writer Leslie Hoffman contributed to this report.

Learn more :: Article Archives :: Los Alamos Will Move Nuclear Materials