NTS plutonium plan opposed

Thursday, July 3, 2003 | 10:53 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and more than 40 people conveyed their opposition Wednesday night to the Nevada Test Site becoming a National Nuclear Security Administration plutonium pit factory for nuclear weapons in 2018.

The National Nuclear Security Administration is considering five sites across the nation as potential manufacturing plants for plutonium pits, the heart of a nuclear weapon, once made at Rocky Flats near Denver, Colo., until it was closed in 1989 because of environmental contamination.

Wednesday's Las Vegas hearing on a draft environmental impact statement for the project was the third one this week and most of the audience expressed anger that the National Nuclear Security Administration, in charge of nuclear weapons under the Department of Energy, put Nevada on the list of potential sites.

Guinn, in comments read by Steve Frishman of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said that the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, appears to be "a very problematic site" for the government to annually make up to 450 plutonium pits.

"The Nevada Test Site lacks the necessary infrastructure to support the proposed pit facility, including insufficient electrical supply and lack of either a rail line or a natural gas pipeline," Guinn's statement said.

Nevada officials are suing the Energy Department for its plans to build a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, on the western edge of the Test Site. Guinn argued that cumulative radiation exposure from the Yucca dump, the pit plant and operations at the Nellis Test Range were not considered in the impact statement.

"The analyses contained in the draft (Environmental Impact Study) do not support adding another risk to this mix," Guinn said.

Plutonium pit document manager Jay Rose said a new facility costing $2 billion to $4 billion is needed because scientists estimate the current plutonium cores in stored nuclear weapons will deteriorate in 45 to 60 years.

The states of South Carolina, Texas and New Mexico are actually asking for the plutonium pit project, Rose said. The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is also under consideration.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to make a decision on a preferred site in March 2004.

A few people are arguing that the Nevada site is the best choice for the project.

Troy Wade, chairman of the Nevada Alliance for Defense, Energy and Business, representing contractors for the DOE and Nellis Air Force Base, said the pit plant would be isolated and secure at the Test Site.

"It is unconscionable to locate such a facility near populations," Wade said.

Ken Riem, a geologist, said that more plutonium pits are necessary as long as the United States relies on a nuclear weapons arsenal.

But Peter Ediger, a local peace activist, thundered into the microphone, "Why in the world are we even thinking of building this stuff?"

"This is a very, very bad idea along with Yucca Mountain," Las Vegas resident Charles Broe said. "It's time the human race woke up."

Tilges asked the government to allow people more time to obtain and read the environmental impact statement almost two inches thick.