UCS questions ‘rush’ to Los Alamos pit production

A representative from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Tuesday said government  urgency for plutonium pit production at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is “unnecessary” —and increases risk to workers.

Dylan Spaulding, a senior scientist researching nuclear weapons production at the Union of Concerned Scientists, laid out his case in prepared comments for a hearing held by DOE and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). DOE and NNSA are drafting a site-wide environmental impact statement (SWEIS) as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. 

Spaulding addressed  two commonly used justifications for producing plutonium pits:  the aging of the plutonium in the nuclear weapons stockpile, and “what is said to be an urgent need to bolster US nuclear deterrence.”

Based  “on the available science,” plutonium in existing stockpile weapons would not be vulnerable to aging effects for decades, Spaulding said. He added that “even the oldest pits in the stockpile are expected to be viable into the 2040’s at least.” 

Even if aging were a concern, pit production was not to “maintain the safety, security, or reliability of the existing US stockpile,” Spaulding said, but to “furnish the first new nuclear warhead to enter the stockpile since the end of the Cold War,” referring to the W87-1 that would go on the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. He added that given the U.S. deploys 1,770 nuclear weapons and has 2,000 in strategic reserve, “new weapons are not an urgent requirement.”

“For these reasons, the current rush to produce pits is unnecessary,” Spaulding said. “The Lab’s plans outlined in the Environmental Impact Statement only serve to increase risk for workers and insufficiently consider protection of the public in the event of a severe accident.”

DOE and NNSA announced a 60-day public comment period, which would include four public hearings to receive comments on the draft, through March 11. 

On Tuesday, there were two hearings out of the four that were held in Santa Fe, N.M., and broadcast virtually. The hearings started with presentations on the SWEIS from leadership from the lab, including field office manager Ted Wyka, and ended with comments from the public until time was up.

The SWEIS outlined a proposal for accelerating pit production, surplus plutonium disposition, and that source plutonium work at Plutonium Facility 4. 

According to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),  the impact of proposed activities “should be considered before they begin,” Spaulding said. Instead, “we are now nearly six years into the ramp-up towards pit production.”

Spaulding also called out the power line that would go through the Caja del Rio plateau, and how continuing with the project, “despite the huge number of opposing comments, suggests a performative approach to NEPA requirements” just as he suggested continuing with accelerated pit production does.

Spaulding was one of several commenters that criticized plutonium pit production at LANL, including one commenter that called it “pits and pits and then even more pits.” Others commented on the environmental footprint of the lab, including calling the leaks from the labs that “poisoned” New Mexico residents “environmental racism,” as many Tribal communities claimed to be affected. 

“Nuclear weapons are immoral,” one commenter said.

The NNSA said last year that it would begin producing 30 war-reserve plutonium pits annually at Los Alamos in 2028.

The NNSA also said that it finished its First Production Unit of a plutonium pit for the planned W87-1 warhead for Sentinel on Oct. 1 last year after the agency verified, or “diamond stamped,” the pit, the fissile core of a warhead first stage, after it met the requirements for readiness to be deployed to the nuclear stockpile at “war reserve” quality.