Nuclear weapons material arrives at Nevada Test Site

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Oct. 1, 2004 | 9:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- After two years of planning, the Nevada Test Site received its first shipment of nuclear material from the Los Alamos National Laboratory Thursday.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has been planning to move weapons-grade nuclear material from the Technical Area 18, known as TA-18, at the lab to the more secure Device Assembly Facility at the Test Site.

The agency would give out few details Thursday after issuing a press release late in the afternoon, citing security reasons, including what exactly the Test Site received, the quantity and when the next shipment would come.

Spokesman Brian Wilkes said all of the proper notifications took place and the shipments were completed according to federal and state transportation regulations.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, was happy with the news "after years of advocating for this."

"Everyone should feel good about it," she said.

The group has been a tough critic of the federal agency's security levels, and ensuring the department moved the material from TA-18 to the Test Site was one of its top priorities.

The Device Assembly Facility was built at the Test Site in the late 1980s to support handling of nuclear materials before underground nuclear experiments. The U.S. halted underground nuclear explosions in September 1992. The facility is used to support subcritical experiments, underground explosions that do not sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

The material is highly enriched uranium and plutonium, according to agency briefings to nuclear officials in Nevada about two years ago, according to Bob Loux, executive director of the Office of Nuclear Projects.

The National Nuclear Security Administration told the state that there would be two or three truck shipments of the material.

The shipments were top secret and no state agencies were notified, Loux said. The routes were kept secret. Nevada officials told the agency not to ship the material near Las Vegas, Loux said.

"They told us they would take that into consideration," Loux said.

The shipments likely had armed escorts, federal briefers had told the state officials.

No highway incidents involving the shipment were reported to the Nevada Highway Patrol, spokeswoman Kimberly Evans said.

The federal agency aims to have most of the material out of Los Alamos a year from now, with all the material moved by 2008.

The state does not object to the shipments. Loux said everyone understands the security issues involved because the material is vulnerable where it is now. He noted this is not nuclear waste and the material does not produce a waste byproduct nor is it expected to say at the Test Site permanently.