Test Site proposed for new nuclear facility

Friday, Oct. 12, 2001 | 10:18 a.m.

The Nevada Test Site is one of five places the Department of Energy is considering for a facility to train people on the handling and detection of nuclear weapons and other radioactive material.

DOE officials during a hearing in North Las Vegas on Thursday night said studies indicate the environment would not be impacted should four nuclear assemblies -- training devices for the handling of nuclear materials -- be moved from New Mexico to the Test Site's $100 million Device Assembly Facility. Noise, air or water pollution would not be factors in the move, the report says.

Completed in 1998, DAF was designed for the assembly and dismantling of nuclear weapons, but all nuclear testing was halted in 1992. The DOE has used the DAF to prepare subcritical experiments using small amounts of plutonium.

The training project is currently located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, known as Technical Area 18, or the Parjarito site. The DOE prefers to keep the project at Los Alamos, though officials want to replace older buildings and equipment, Cormier said.

Los Alamos trains about 300 people in counter-terrorism each year. The training includes instruction on the handling and detection of nuclear materials.

In addition to the the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and the current facility in New Mexico, other locations being considered for the training site are Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, Argonne National Laboratory West in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and a new site at Los Alamos.

When operating, an assembly produces about as much energy as a Christmas tree light bulb and almost no low-level radioactive waste.

Cost estimates range from $50 million to $200 million to build and operate the facility, but a final figure cannot be estimated until the new facility is designed, Chuck Cormier, who works for the DOE in Albuquerque, N.M., said.

The facility cost estimates don't reflect how much money it would take to transport to the Test Site equipment and minute amounts of radioactive materials used in the assemblies.

About 200 employees would be needed to to build the facility, sometime after 2005. About 20 permanent staff members would be employed to operate the facility, Jay Rose, the DOE's environmental impacts manager for the project, said.

"This is a good alternative," Rose, referring to the Test Site, said at the hearing. The cost of packaging the nuclear materials and shipping them to the Test Site, however, could dampen DOE's enthusiasm for moving the facility, he said.

A decision by the DOE on the project is expected in February 2002.