Uranium planned for Test Site

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.

Critics of security at department facilities had been worried that only half would be moved, but Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said at a House Government Reform hearing: "It is our intention to move all of that."

Earlier this month, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced its plans to start shipping the first half of its "special nuclear material" from the Technical Area 18, known as TA-18, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Test Site. Shipments are to start in September and last 18 months.

Brooks explained Tuesday that the rest of the material will be shipped to the Test Site sometime after that 18-month timeframe. The Test Site is 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"Special nuclear material" consists of plutonium and enriched uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons. The specific total amount of the material is classified, said NNSA spokesman Brian Wilkes.

This material is more dangerous than the low-level radioactive waste, such as contaminated gloves, soil and equipment the Test Site stores in Area 3 and Area 5 of the Test Site.

The Test Site will store the materials at the Device Assembly Facility, where the federal government conducts underground explosion experiments that do not sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

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