Nevada is “actively exploring all possible avenues” to prevent the Department of Energy from moving nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into the state, Gov. Brian Sandoval wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
The Nevada Independent website first published the letter Wednesday.
In response to a federal court order in December, DOE is contemplating moving about 1 metric ton of plutonium now located in South Carolina through Nevada to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the agency would use the material to help create new fissile nuclear warhead cores called plutonium pits. The court ordered the material out of South Carolina by Jan. 1, 2020.
Sandoval said in his letter he only learned of DOE’s plan Sept. 28 — at least two months after the agency settled on the decision in an environmental review called a supplement analysis.
“Nevada remains strongly opposed to the proposed storage of plutonium at the NNSS [Nevada National Security Site],” Sandoval wrote. He said DOE had not properly assessed the environmental risks of moving the plutonium to the Nevada site’s Device Assembly Facility, which Sandoval said is “intended to conduct sensitive nuclear security experiments, and should not be used as a high-priced storage facility for indefinitely housing plutonium DOE has failed to properly manage.”
The Energy Department says previous environmental reviews adequately assessed the risks of moving plutonium between South Carolina and Nevada.
The plutonium in question was either to be removed from South Carolina or processed into another form by Jan. 1, 2016, under an agreement with the state enshrined in federal law. It was to be converted to reactor fuel by the still-unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at the Savannah River Site. The U.S. District Court order, which DOE has appealed even as it prepares to move the plutonium, was part of a lawsuit South Carolina filed in 2016
Besides the Nevada National Security Site, the plutonium from Savannah River might also have a layover in DOE’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, before it goes to Los Alamos. according to DOE’s supplement analysis.
