Activists Press Alexander for Details on UPF
An activist group has initiated a letter-writing campaign aimed at prodding Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, to release more information about plans for the multibillion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The group hopes the campaign, timed with the looming expiration of the current continuing budget resolution on Dec. 11, will get hundreds of Tennesseans to write to Alexander and ask him to reveal details of his private talks with UPF project officials and Department of Energy management.
“The basic message is simple: We live in a democracy. We have a right to know, and he has a duty to disclose,” Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance coordinator Ralph Hutchison said in a statement distributed this week.
The peace group has accused Alexander of “bankrolling” the project from his appropriations leadership position and holding secret meetings to discuss the future course of UPF, which has been revised and scaled down in an effort to keep the price tag within the previously stated range of $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion. OREPA has strongly opposed construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and suggested the real price tag might ultimately exceed $10 billion.
“Since 2010, two billion taxpayer dollars have been spent designing the UPF bomb plant,” Hutchison said in the statement. “More than half a billion was written off as wasted when the first plan was scrapped. We are now on the third plan, which has not been formally approved by the Department of Energy, and the money continues to flow to Bechtel (which is managing the project under a subcontract with Y-12 contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security). There is no credible estimate of the total cost of the project. We want to know where the money is going.”
Alexander’s office did not provide a response to the group’s statements.
Y-12 Chemistry Group Needs a New Home
The Analytical Chemistry Organization at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant is looking for a new home, and the reason is commonplace at the Oak Ridge plant: its current facility is falling apart.
According to a newly released memorandum by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staff, the National Nuclear Security Administration earlier this year asked Consolidated Nuclear Security – the managing contractor at Y-12 – to come up with some alternatives for future operations.
The memo indicated the problem was related to “age-related deterioration” of Building 9995, where the plant’s Analytical Chemistry Organization – and about 70 employees associated with those operations – are housed.
“During the last several years, Building 9995 has experienced equipment failures in systems such as air conditioning, electrical distribution, and utility piping,” the Oct. 9 DNFSB memo says.
CNS reportedly submitted a preliminary analysis in September and made recommendations to the NNSA Production Office. Those options, according to the DNFSB report, included relocating Analytical Chemistry operations to an existing facility inside Y-12’s high-security Protected Area or construction of a new facility outside the Protected Area.
NNSA spokesman Steven Wyatt, in response to questions, said via email: “Final determinations on relocation of Analytical Chemistry laboratories have not been made yet. NNSA is evaluating all possibilities at this point in order to make a decision that is in the best interest of Y-12’s missions and stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”
