Plans delayed for nuclear weapons plant

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has temporarily delayed its plans to build a nuclear weapons trigger plant that could end up in Nevada.

The Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is one of five sites under consideration for the Modern Pit Facility, the department's plan for a new multibillion-dollar plant that would make plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons.

Linton Brooks of the National Nuclear Security Administration announced Wednesday that the department will delay work on a final environmental analysis for the project. The final document, scheduled to come out in April, would have named the site where the department would build the new plant.

Los Alamos and Carlsbad, N.M., the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., are also under consideration.

NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said no specific date has been name for when work might resume, but stressed that the administration was "delaying, not canceling," the project. The administration oversees the country's nuclear weapons stockpile.

Wilkes said there are certain issues that need to be addressed in Congress before the project can move forward.

The administration had requested $23 million to work on the project this year, but Congress approved only $11 million, saying it was too premature to build a new facility without knowing how many triggers, known as plutonium pits, exist in the existing nuclear stockpile. Several members of Congress offered amendments to delay the program. The administration wants to build new pits to keep current nuclear weapons in working condition.

"Restoring our capability to manufacture plutonium pits is an essential element of America's nuclear defense policy," Brooks said in a prepared statement. "While there is widespread support in Congress for this project, I believe we need to pause to respond to concerns that some committees have raised about its timing."

Gov. Kenny Guinn objected to the project last year.