Energy Secretary Rick Perry and National Nuclear Security Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty met Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) this week at the Nevada National Security Site, weeks after the agency halted prohibited shipments of nuclear waste to the facility and months after it received clandestine delivery of weapon-usable plutonium.
That is according to a Thursday report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Perry, Gordon-Hagerty, and Sisolak toured the former Nevada Test Site, the newspaper reported. The meeting followed an angry letter writing campaign, spearheaded by Sisolak and Nevada’s congressional delegation, after the plutonium and waste shipments.
Sisolak, elected in the November 2018 election, has been among the most vocal critics of the Department of Energy’s decision to send weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site in order to comply with a federal court order that required the agency to remove the material from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The plutonium arrived some time last year. The half metric ton of plutonium is slated to remain in the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility until 2026, Perry has said.
More recently, the department halted shipments of low-level radioactive waste to a Nevada National Security Site disposal facility from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The shipments started in 2013.
Through December 2018, DOE sent nine shipments containing a total of 32 containers to the Nevada. The shipments were managed at Y-12 by a contractor and were “potentially mischaracterized as low-level waste rather than mixed low-level waste,” DOE has said. The Nevada site to which the waste was delivered is not allowed to accept mixed low-level waste, which includes hazardous materials as well as radioactive elements.
“I appreciate the governor taking the time to learn more about the vital national security missions being performed by the dedicated patriots who work at the Nevada National Security Site,” the Review-Journal quoted Perry as saying. “The department remains committed to working closely with Nevada state officials in an open and transparent way to support this great resource and maintain our trust and credibility with the people of Nevada.”
