Nevada escalated a closed-door dialogue with the Department of Energy (DOE) to the federal court system because the agency got cagey about its plans for moving 1 metric ton of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium to and from the state beginning in 2019, according to an affidavit produced this week.
The document, from an adviser to Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), is part of the Nevada’s new lawsuit aiming to prevent the plutonium from being shipped into the state.
Earlier this year, DOE settled on a plan to move the plutonium at issue to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The agency said the material might make a stop at the Nevada National Security Site, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Los Alamos, is still expanding its plutonium-handling facilities and would not have room to house the material until later in the next decade, according to DOE.
The Energy Department let Nevada in on the plan in April, before publicly releasing an environmental review about the plutonium relocation approach in late August, according to an affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Nevada by Pam Robinson, Sandoval’s policy director.
A U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina gave DOE until Jan. 1, 2020, to move 1 metric ton of plutonium out of the state, after the agency failed to dispose of it there as part of a nuclear-materials reduction pact with Russia. The Energy Department wants to use the material to manufacture plutonium pits: fissile nuclear-warhead cores.
From April to November, Nevada and DOE discussed the matter face-to-face and by telephone, and exchanged letters about the agency’s plan. In September, Sandoval spoke by phone with Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Nevada wanted details: How would DOE move the plutonium? How would the agency keep the heavily traveled roads near tourist mecca Las Vegas safe from harm? How long would the plutonium remain at the Nevada National Security Site?
Ultimately, DOE gave Nevada nothing other than “a general ‘expectation’ that any plutonium would be removed by approximately 2026-27,” Robinson wrote in her affidavit.
Amid the communications breakdown, Nevada sued on Nov. 30.
Meanwhile, DOE is set to file an update with the U.S. District Court in South Carolina on Dec. 15 about its plan to move Savannah River plutonium to Los Alamos.
Nevada has asked District Judge Miranda Du and Magistrate Judge Carla Baldwin Carry to stop the agency “from shipping (or directing any other entity to ship) all or any part of the one metric ton (about 2,200 pounds) of plutonium … which is located in the State of South Carolina, in and through Nevada to the DOE’s Nevada Nuclear Security Site (NNSS).”
That is according to a request for a preliminary injunction filed late last week. In the complaint that preceded that request, Nevada argued DOE should not be allowed to ship the plutonium to the Silver State, either from South Carolina or the Pantex Plant in Texas, until the agency complies with the National Environmental Policy Act and related regulations.
Nevada claims DOE must complete a potentially years-long environmental review before moving the fissile material. The federal agency says it can rely on previous reviews of plutonium transportation. The material moved to Savannah River from Texas between 2002 and 2014.
The Energy Department had not filed a response to the lawsuit at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The Energy Department in May reclassified 1 metric ton of the plutonium in South Carolina as “for defense-production use.” The material had previously been declared surplus to defense needs, but the agency diverted it back to the nuclear weapons program after failing to convert it into commercial reactor fuel as part of a reciprocal materials-reduction pact with Russia.
Under that 2000 agreement, each country was to get rid of 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium. The U.S. planned to accomplish that by turning the material into commercial reactor fuel using the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. However, DOE decided the facility was too costly to build and, after a protracted political battle, canceled the partially built facility on Oct. 10.
MOX Services, the prime for the facility, plans to lay off its work force of more than 1,500 over the next year as construction winds down. The first wave of layoffs, covering about 600 positions, will happen Jan. 7, the company has said. On Thursday, the company announced another round of layoffs that would be effective in February, a source said. It was not clear how many people would be laid off in this second round of cuts.
With the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility gone, DOE plans to dispose of the 34 metric tons of plutonium by diluting it, mixing it with concrete-like grout, and burying the mixture deep underground in New Mexico at the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
This plan, too, is controversial. Congress must still approve funding, and federal courts have said DOE may need to complete yet another years-long environmental review before it can move forward with the alternative “dilute-and-dispose” plan.
