Even a temporary pause on construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee could cost the federal government nearly $1 billion, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week in asking a federal judge to refuse a request from a group of environmental organizations for a stop-work order.
In addition, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon steward said in court papers filed Monday, the plaintiffs never actually asked for a shutdown when they sued in 2016 over the agency’s failure to include certain earthquake-hazard data in a legally required environmental review of the planned uranium hub.
“Plaintiffs are seeking post-judgment relief that they did not request in their complaint or seek on summary judgment,” the federal attorney representing the NNSA wrote in a response to the environmentalists’ Oct. 25 request that the court force the agency to stop building the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) while the department considers seismic data published by the Interior Department in 2014.
Continuing construction, the agency said in the filing, “will further public safety at Y-12, and will avoid the substantial harm to NNSA and the public that would result from an unnecessary shutdown of this construction.”
On Sept. 24, Chief Judge Pamela Reeves of U.S. District Court in Eastern Tennessee ruled that the NNSA must incorporate earthquake hazard data from the Interior Department into a new a supplement analysis to the agency’s 2011 environmental impact statement on UPF. But Reeves did not order the NNSA to cease construction while preparing the supplement analysis, so work continued.
A six- to 12-month pause in UPF construction could cost between $650 million and $950 million, the NNSA’s attorney wrote, citing a supporting brief from Robert Raines, NNSA’s associate administrator for acquisition and project management. The agency would also have to lay off about 1,000 people at the construction site, according to the filing.
Personnel at UPF will build secondary stages for refurbished nuclear weapons, and purify highly enriched uranium for those secondaries. The NNSA has said it will finish building the facility by December 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion.
