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First Los Alamos nuclear materials In Nevada
by Leslie Hoffman, September 30, 2004

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Federal officials said Thursday that the first shipment of weapons-grade nuclear material has been sent out of a steep canyon at Los Alamos National Laboratory that some warned was vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The Energy Department has been working since December 2002 to move the highly enriched uranium and plutonium from Los Alamos' Technical Area 18 to the Device Assembly Facility, a high-security storehouse in a remote area of the Nevada Test Site, northwest of Las Vegas.

The first transfer was completed Thursday.

TA-18 was built in the 1940s at the bottom of a steep canyon, and critics have raised security concerns about the site. Lab officials have said they are able to protect the material, but add that the cost of maintaining security there is high. The transfer is aimed at consolidating the National Nuclear Security Administration's nuclear materials in a newer, more secure facility, officials have said. The NNSA is an arm of the Energy Department responsible for overseeing the department's nuclear complex.

Lab watchdogs have pushed for the transfer, arguing it will improve national security and save taxpayers money.

It was temporarily put on hold last summer when cost estimates soared to $310 million - a more than threefold increase from initial estimates.

The NNSA plans to relocate the most sensitive weapons-grade nuclear material by September 2005 and move the remaining material by 2008.

Completion of the first shipment reinforces "NNSA's commitment to relocate TA-18 activities to a newer, more secure location," said Everet Beckner, deputy administrator for defense programs.

NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said only that a "specialized transportation system with very high security" was used to transport the material on unspecified roads. He said the agency, for security reasons, would not disclose the amount of material transferred.

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

Originally published by the Associated Press.

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