Page B of POGO's report, U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex:
Homeland Security Opportunities

Click here for the report glossary
Despite the studies’ findings, little has changed. The reports were dutifully filed away (if they were completed at all), and their conclusions ignored.

The Department has made some strides since 2001 toward accomplishing consolidation: the Rocky Flats Plutonium Plant outside Denver has been de-inventoried and Technical Area 18 at Los Alamos is at long last being de-inventoried despite ongoing efforts to derail the process.

Final Disposition of Special Nuclear Materials

In addition to consolidating the number of sites housing Special Nuclear Materials, it is essential that excess materials be disposed of in such a way that they no longer create an unnecessary homeland security vulnerability.  While the U.S. has been financing the Russian government’s effort to downblend 500 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium and to corral all “loose nukes,” here at home the efforts have been half-hearted at best. The Russians have already downblended 200 metric tons – enough for approximately 9,000-10,000 weapons. The United States has only downblended 34 metric tons. Although the U.S. plans to downblend 140 metric tons more, it is not scheduled for completion until 2016 or beyond. (APPENDIX D)

In the late 1990s, the U.S. was moving ahead with plans to immobilize some part of its excess weapons-grade plutonium inventory – which entails stabilizing it in a glass or ceramic matrix and immersing it in canisters of glassified, highly-radioactive waste. In September 2000, the U.S. and Russia signed a plutonium management and disposition agreement to each dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium. This arrangement has been stalled for nearly five years, while the surplus plutonium in both countries continues to present security and proliferation risks.

Initially, the U.S. was planning to use two disposition methods: irradiation to create mixed-oxide fuel for commercial reactors and immobilization. In 2001, the U.S. abandoned its immobilization plans, and decided to pursue turning 100% of the excess plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel (MOX). However, the MOX plan has not turned out to be the quick and cheap path to disposition that some believed it to be. Turning the excess plutonium into MOX is currently estimated to take approximately seventeen years, versus the seven years estimated for immobilizing the plutonium. Because of delays, cost overruns and other problems, the current projected cost to the U.S. is around $6-7 billion for turning both U.S. and Russian plutonium into MOX. Furthermore, there are certain security concerns with MOX. Immobilization of plutonium is therefore clearly a quicker and cheaper disposition path than MOX, and does not have the security concerns of mixed-oxide conversion. Moreover, the MOX option was promoted pre-9/11, when the ongoing homeland security vulnerabilities posed by the plutonium inventories were not fully recognized. The good news is that the FY2006 budget includes $10 million for a conceptual design of a new plutonium immobilization plant at the Savannah River Site.[20] This evaluation should be accomplished by scientists and engineers with some recognized independence and balance such as the National Academy of Sciences. (APPENDIX E) 
Cost Savings Through Consolidation

Some key weapons facilities, including Los Alamos’ TA-18 and Lawrence Livermore National Lab, will not be able to protect against the new threat level no matter how much money is spent, because of their location. Removing all Special Nuclear Materials from those facilities dramatically reduces security vulnerabilities for those facilities while also dramatically decreasing security costs.

DOE’s only immediate alternative in the aftermath of 9/11 was to increase its protective force capability.  As time passed, other actions across the DOE complex included a host of assessment and communication enhancements, and target consolidation.  However, the most critical aspect of DOE’s response to the terrorist threat continues to be larger, better-trained, properly-equipped, and more robust protective forces.  Unfortunately, protective forces by their very nature are manpower-intensive and are a very expensive recurring cost. The increase in protective force strength necessary to address the increased threat is exponential. If the number of terrorists a site is required to protect against increases by a factor of three, DOE facilities with multiple targets may need to add more than 30 protective force members per shift. This is true because the adversary has the advantage of concentrating all its resources (tactics and firepower) in a narrow corridor for entry and target acquisition. Of course, there is no way for the protective force to know where that attack is going to occur, so it must protect the entire facility equally. For every additional “bad guy” the guard force has to protect against, the DOE requires three new “good guy” posts. Each post requires five people to cover all the shifts.  Therefore, for each new adversary, DOE needs to hire 15 new protective force guards.

The only way to reduce the most costly element of DOE protection systems – protective force response – and maintain overall system effectiveness is to substantially increase the delay in a terrorist attack before a terrorist can get “hands-on” SNM.  Activated barriers provide delay in the tens of minutes versus fixed barriers which typically provide only tens of seconds. Although delay mechanisms are not a panacea for fundamental structural or geographic limitations at a site, they should be more seriously considered for wider use.

The following cost figures are POGO’s best estimates for meeting the 2004 DBT in the complex’s current configuration, versus the estimated cost of meeting the same standards with POGO’s recommended consolidation. These estimates are necessarily approximate because the exact amounts of Special Nuclear Materials are classified, as are the proposed security upgrades, many of which are yet to be determined. These estimates and recommendations have been reviewed by current and former DOE and DOD security officials, other government agencies, and U.S. Special Operations personnel familiar with the weapons complex. 

Estimated Consolidation Savings Over Three Years
(in millions of dollars)
Savings
Elements
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Energy, Science & Environment (ESE) & Naval Reactors
Sites
Livermore
Y-12
Los Alamos'
TA-55 & TA-18+
Sandia
Savannah River
Pantex
Nevada Test Site
Hanford
INEEL & Argonne West
Oak Ridge Nat'l Lab*
NFS & Lynchburg
Guard Force
315
0270
270
225
360
90
-90
225
0
180
-360
Infrastructure
60
750mil. to 1.4 bil
100
50
100
50
0
70
-75
110
**
Subtotal
375
1.02 to 1.67 bil
370
275
460
140
-90
295
-75
290
-360
Has Special Nuclear Materials after Consolidation
NO
YES
YES/NO
NO
NO
YES
YES
NO
YES/NO
NO
YES/YES


NNSA
ESE and NAVAL
Savings
$2.55 billion
$150 million
TOTAL
$2.7 Billion
* Plus cost to downblend U-233
**Plus cost of unknown infrastructure requirements
+These facilities are scheduled to be de-inventoried before the new security standards are required to have been fully implemented in 2008. However, POGO has been told that the current schedule is already slipping. Immediate de-inventorying will remove the need for incremental security upgrades in FY2005-FY2008.
Compiled by Project On Government Oversight, March 2005


The manpower savings are calculated by taking our best estimate of the cost of pre-9/11 manpower and multiplying by three because the 2004 DBT is more than triple the pre-9/11 DBT.  Each protective force member costs approximately $125,000 annually.  Therefore, each additional post, with four shifts plus one person to cover vacation and sick leave, will cost an additional $625,000.

We have tripled the annual savings from protective force reductions because it is the industry standard to estimate return on investment by including annual savings for three years into the future. There are no significant increases in transportation costs (other than fuel) derived from recommended moves of material from one site to another, as transportation assets are a pre-existing sunk cost to the complex. There will be additional, marginal increased costs to packaging the materials for transportation.

POGO's Reccomendations for Consolidation of Special Nuclear Materials*
*Category I and II weapons grade plutonium and
highly-enriched uranium

click on map above for larger view (high resolution file)


SITES THAT SHOULD BE DE-INVENTORIED IMMEDIATELY

 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

“[A]lthough the Subcommittee has heard suggestions to eliminate special nuclear material at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, our judgment is that such a step would preclude our carrying out important Stockpile Stewardship assessments.”

-- NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks, April 2004.[21]

Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory-Current Day Photo
click on photo above for
larger view of housing area
Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory

Photo from October 2003 DOE document













Livermore, just to the East of the San Francisco Bay Area, is managed by the University of California. It is a weapons design lab, has a role in stockpile stewardship, and houses hundreds of pounds of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium. Currently the only mission for Special Nuclear Materials at the Lab is for studying the aging of plutonium and studying cracked plutonium pits[22] for nuclear warheads. This same work is also conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Roughly seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the Livermore Lab.  In fact, many residential homes now exist across the street from the Lab’s fence line, and new townhouses with mini-vineyards are being built along the edge of the fence line. These homes sit only 800 yards from the Superblock, which houses the Lab’s plutonium. If a terrorist group detonated an Improvised Nuclear Device at the Lab, the San Francisco Bay Area and inland regions – the key agricultural areas of California – could be devastated. These consequences appear to have been lost on the NNSA. In February 2004, the NNSA proposed doubling Livermore ’s plutonium to 1,500 kilograms.  (APPENDIX F)

According to DOE documents, as well as interviews POGO has conducted with numerous DOE security experts about Livermore, the Lab’s security is marginal. Surprisingly, the protective forces at Livermore are issued far less lethal and less powerful weapons than protective forces at other sites that store the same Special Nuclear Materials.[23] Security personnel also lack breaching explosives (used for breaching doors or creating holes in the side of the building), which they would need to use if terrorists barricaded themselves inside a storage vault or lab to construct an improvised nuclear bomb or prepare a radiological dispersal device.

Sunday, February 8, 2004
The 1-ton truck that breached the Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories' security perimeter.
click on photo above for larger view
The security at the site is so inadequate that, in February 2003, a one-ton truck crashed through the perimeter security fence at Livermore and the neighboring Sandia California facility,[24] and was able to travel “a considerable distance inside the site security perimeter” before being stopped by security. The DOE’s Inspector General discovered that ten months after pop-up barriers had been installed at a cost of millions of dollars, the NNSA had still not authorized their activation.[25] 

Department officials state that the security force is not armed with more lethal weapons because the Lab is bordered by residential neighborhoods. As one former senior Department security official told POGO, “The [Department] and the Livermore neighbors are concerned about the use of automatic weapons and small explosives. But what are their concerns about radiological sabotage or an IND [a nuclear explosion] in their neighborhood?”

The encroaching residential community surrounding Lawrence Livermore has made it nearly impossible to properly protect the Lab’s weapons quantities of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium. Security officials at other sites have responded to the new security standards with the proposal of extending the perimeter fences around the nuclear facilities. Livermore cannot make this change because homes and businesses surround Livermore. There is simply no room. (click here to go back to the Lawrence Livermore pictures.)

Furthermore, the security officers’ corps is suffering from severely low morale because, in addition to being inadequately armed, they have inadequate first-responder benefits. Three years ago, the Livermore security officers brought their concerns about the lack of first-responder benefits to the attention of Congress. Despite this, they still have not received life or disability insurance or other benefits equivalent to those provided to Livermore firefighters, or to local and state police forces. This, understandably, dampens the security officers’ willingness to accept higher levels of risk and raises the question about whether or not they will stay and fight if real bullets fly. Security officers wonder why first responders and local police and fire departments have first-responder benefits and they don’t. As one officer pointed out, if a Livermore security officer and a Livermore firefighter both respond to an incident or attack and both get injured or killed, the firefighter and his family get a whole package of benefits including health, disability and life insurance, while the security officer and his family get none of these benefits. The disparity is not a result of the different policies of different employers because Livermore security officers and firefighters are employed by the University of California . The result of this unequal policy is a security force whose members wonder each day they go to work, “Who is going to look after my family if I get killed saving the day?” (APPENDIX G)

POGO spoke with a senior University of California official in 2004 about this issue. The official assured POGO that this problem would be resolved during labor negotiations. It was not.

One of Secretary Abraham’s May 2004 initiatives was to review the necessity of maintaining Livermore ’s Special Nuclear Materials. “As part of the review we will consider whether certain essential work performed at Livermore could be relocated to allow us to remove the [weapons grade material] stored there,” he said in his May speech.

Even a decade ago, government officials questioned Livermore ’s need to house Special Nuclear Material. In 1995, then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary established a task force on “Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories,” comprised of leaders from industry and academia, including former Livermore Lab Director Herbert York.  Known as the “Galvin Report” after Chairman Robert Galvin of Motorola Inc., the task force recommended:

[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory] would transfer, as cost-efficiency allows, over the next five years its activities in nuclear materials development and production to the other design laboratory. [Livermore] would transfer direct stockpile support to the other weapons laboratories as the requirements of science-based stockpile stewardship, support of the DoD nuclear posture, and the status of test bans allow. Under these conditions, the Task Force believes that the transfer can be made in five years. (APPENDIX H)

The commission believed Livermore could be de-inventoried of Special Nuclear Materials by 2000.

There is great resistance within the NNSA and Livermore to the removal of the Special Nuclear Materials from Livermore. Lab officials appear to feel that without nuclear materials, the Lab’s relevance might be questioned.  Phil Coyle, the former deputy director at Livermore and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, told the Los Angeles Times in May 2004 that removing bomb-grade material from Livermore would make it more difficult to justify continued research with highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. “If they have to reduce materials at Livermore to the point where they can’t do their work, then people will ask why everything just can’t be done at Los Alamos,” he said.  The article continued, “Since the end of the Cold War, Livermore successfully has rebuffed critics who said that the nation does not need two labs supporting the nuclear weapons program and that Los Alamos could handle all the work.”[26] [27]

Currently, the safety problems at Livermore are so extensive that all plutonium activities at the Superblock have been discontinued – perhaps for as long as six months to two years. (APPENDIX O)

RECOMMENDATION: Remove all weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium from Livermore. The current shut-down at the Superblock is the perfect opportunity to prepare a path for de-inventorying the Lab of Special Nuclear Materials. If Livermore continues to need some amount of this material for its mission, the required material should be stored at the Device Assembly Facility in Nevada, only an hour’s plane ride away. Livermore scientists who need to work with the material can travel there to conduct research, something they did for years during the nuclear testing program.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $375-385 million

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is adjacent to Y-12 and overseen by DOE’s Energy, Science, and Environment (ESE) Division, dates back to the Manhattan Project and performs basic scientific research for a variety of disciplines. ORNL maintains some stockpiles of Neptunium-237 and stores one thousand cans of Uranium-233.[28]  It has generally been assumed that the Uranium-233 could not be transported, nor would it be accepted by Y-12, which is far more capable of protecting the materials.  Although the Lab does not yet acknowledge the risk of U-233, senior nuclear engineers advise POGO that this material is as potent and dangerous as highly-enriched uranium in terms of making an improvised nuclear bomb.

For years, there has been the hope of extracting Thorium-229 from U-233 to produce medical isotopes used in cancer research and treatment.  However, this effort has not progressed.  Questions have been raised about the cost effectiveness of this effort, and whether there are alternatives.  In the end, the belief that U-233 might provide a useful isotope has become a stumbling block for disposing of these hazardous materials. In 2002, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board strongly suggested that, “considering the unique hazards associated with U-233,” ORNL not wait for a proposed plan to extract medical isotopes from Uranium-233 to begin downblending it, but instead develop a back-up plan.  It appears such a back-up plan does not yet exist. (APPENDIX I)

Given these circumstances, it is extraordinary that ORNL does not have the security systems required for housing weapons-grade materials.  It has not had an approved security plan (known as a Site Specific Security Plan) since 1997.  It is missing some fundamental aspects of a basic security system: a double fence line with sensors and cameras between them,[29] an adequate number of guards, and a Special Response Team (SRT) – an on-site security team with SWAT capabilities.  In fact, ORNL’s defensive strategy depends on the protective force (particularly the SRT team) from Y-12 to respond to a security emergency at ORNL. This strategy is seriously flawed: it makes the already-vulnerable Y-12 even more so, especially if the attack on ORNL is a diversion and the real target is Y-12’s massive stockpiles of HEU.

ORNL security officers failed a self-assessment force-on-force test in 2004, according to DOE security officials. Special Response Team members from Y-12 acted as attackers, successfully breaching security at the Lab and “killing” the entire ORNL protective force in 90 seconds. It is important to recognize that this test was not as rigorous as an independent test administered by DOE.  Although DOE did come to ORNL in 2000 to assess security at the Lab, they did not run a performance test.

RECOMMENDATION: ORNL should be de-inventoried of all Special Nuclear Materials. The Neptunium-237 should be shipped to the underground storage facility in Idaho . It has generally been assumed that the Uranium-233 could not be transported, nor would it be accepted by Y-12, which is far more capable of protecting the materials.  However, POGO has recently learned from the manager of Y-12 that BWXT, the contractor, would be willing to make the arrangements necessary to store the U-233 if asked to do so by the government.  This request should be made immediately. Furthermore, a decision regarding the feasibility of extracting medical isotopes should be made promptly, in order to allow for downblending the U-233 as quickly as possible. If the U-233 is downblended and an economical way to extract medical isotopes is eventually found, the Russians also have stockpiles of U-233 that could be used for this purpose.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $290 million

 Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 18

“Getting this material out of TA-18 and to Nevada will assist NNSA in more quickly establishing critical national security missions in Nevada while consolidating special nuclear materials in a newer, more secure facility.”

-- NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks, March 31, 2004.[30]

For decades, the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area 18 (TA-18) has been the most vulnerable site in the entire weapons complex. There is about 1.5 metric tons of Special Nuclear Material and other items at the site, which is situated at the bottom of a canyon (the most indefensible area in the entire weapons complex). In an October 2000 test of security at TA-18, the “terrorists” took over a facility containing large plates of highly-enriched uranium. The protective force could not get them out or “kill” them. Real terrorists would have had plenty of time to create an IND that would have decimated a significant portion of northern New Mexico.

In late 2004, the Department began de-inventorying the notorious TA-18 of its weapons-grade material, and is now preparing to move the material to the more secure Design Assembly Facility at the Nevada Test Site.[31] DOE is scheduled to complete this long-overdue move in September 2005.

NNSA can meet its goal, but DOE Headquarters and Congress should actively oversee the process. As of March 2005, Los Alamos was still pushing to conduct five experiments at the site, which would require a six month slip in schedule. When this was brought to the attention of National Nuclear Security Administration Director Linton Brooks at a closed Congressional hearing, Brooks committed to ensuring these experiments would not cause a schedule slip.

However, NNSA and Los Alamos have a history of ignoring problems and directives. For instance, in 2000, recognizing the insurmountable security problems at the site, then-Secretary Bill Richardson ordered NNSA to remove these materials by the end of 2004. Los Alamos stalled, and NNSA simply did not take any action. In March 2004, then-Secretary Abraham reissued Richardson’s order. But the NNSA has a mixed record of addressing this issue. Recent NNSA memos show that senior agency officials were giving conflicting orders about what would happen to TA-18. (APPENDIX J)  Without oversight from higher up, NNSA may yet again do nothing.

The Department’s Los Alamos Site Office is aggressively overseeing the move, but there is reason for concern about the pace of the operation. In September 2004, the Department announced with great fanfare that a shipment of Special Nuclear Materials had gone to the Nevada site. It turned out the shipment did not contain weapons-grade material. A weapons-grade shipment went in December, but it contained less than 80 pounds of bomb-grade material. 

RECOMMENDATION: TA-18 is currently scheduled to be de-inventoried by the end of 2005, before the new security standards are required to have been fully implemented in 2008. However, POGO has been told that the current schedule is already slipping. Furthermore, some of the surplus material will be stored at the Los Alamos’ Technical Area 55 until 2008. Immediate de-inventorying will remove the need for incremental security upgrades in FY2005-FY2008. The material currently slated to be temporarily stored at TA-55 should also be moved from Los Alamos's to the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada Test Site by the end of FY2005.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $370 million

Sandia National Laboratory

Sandia National Laboratory is a nuclear weapons engineering laboratory located in the highly-populated area of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Kirtland Air Force Base. The only weapons quantities of Special Nuclear Material stored at Sandia are some minor weapons parts and the HEU fuel plates in the Lab’s SPR III Burst Reactor, a machine specifically designed to test the effects of radiation on nuclear weapons’ components. This still poses a risk to the population because the fuel plates for the burst reactor can be used to make an IND.

There has been a number of embarrassing high-profile security failures at Sandia, including sleeping guards and lost keys to secure areas.[32] Then-Secretary Abraham announced in May 2004 that Sandia will cease operations of the reactor by 2007 and replace it with computer simulations. “This represents an intelligent substitution of advanced technology for brute force, and I applaud it,” he stated. The Department has yet to justify any ongoing operations for the burst reactor. However, it intends to keep the reactor until late 2007, at which point Sandia is scheduled to be de-inventoried of its SNM. (APPENDIX B)

Both DOE and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have found serious safety problems with Sandia’s burst reactor. Resolving these problems will be expensive and time-consuming, another reason for terminating the use of the unnecessary SPR III immediately. 

RECOMMENDATION: Immediately de-inventory the SPR III burst reactor’s HEU fuel plates and weapons parts, thereby removing the need for incremental security upgrades in FY2005-FY2007. If Lab scientists need to test components, as they claim they will in 2007, they could use the almost-identical burst reactors at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland or White Sands facility in New Mexico . DOE should dramatically accelerate plans for de-inventorying Sandia of all Special Nuclear Materials.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $275 Million

 Hanford Reservation

 Hanford produced the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb and, along with Savannah River, produced the rest of the plutonium stash for U.S. nuclear weapons. In the 1980s, plutonium production was terminated at Hanford. A number of non-weapons research projects continue at Hanford, but there is no requirement for Special Nuclear Materials for the weapons program itself. The de-inventorying of Hanford’s SNM has gone on for years, with most Department officials believing there was no SNM left.  However, Hanford has retained a large quantity of plutonium that is not scheduled to be moved until 2007, and some SNM from the Los Alamos Molten Plutonium Reactor Experiment (LAMPRE) for which there are no plans for removal or disposition. (APPENDIX K) This is of particular concern, as Hanford failed a force-on-force exercise after 9/11.

RECOMMENDATION: Ship all the remaining Special Nuclear Materials to Savannah River immediately so that Hanford will not incur the enormous cost of meeting the new Design Basis Threat.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $295 Million


SITES WITH INADEQUATE SECURITY STANDARDS

Nuclear Fuel Services

Located in Erwin, Tennessee, Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) is a commercially-operated Category I nuclear fuel facility.  It spans more than 60-acres, with a 21-acre protected area. NFS contains tons of highly-enriched uranium for the production of naval reactor fuel, and downblends HEU.[33] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licenses this site and is responsible for testing security, but it has not tested the site’s security since 1998. Although problems with security were identified at that time, the Office of Naval Reactors reportedly fixed them quickly.

In October 2004, NRC announced that this site had started downblending 33 metric tons of HEU from Savannah River for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear power plant.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Hold this facility to the same upgraded Design Basis Threat as the Department of Energy’s sites.

Shift responsibility for testing security from the NRC to the DOE’s Office of Safety and Security Performance Assurance.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL COST: at least $180 million

Nuclear Products Division of BWXT

Nuclear Products Division is a commercially-operated Category I fuel facility in Lynchburg, Virginia. It spans 437 acres and has 60 buildings and trailers. It houses HEU for the production of naval reactor fuel, and downblends HEU into fuel for commercial reactors. Even though Nuclear Products Division is primarily funded by DOE’s Office of Naval Reactors and contains Category I Special Nuclear Materials, the NRC licenses and is responsible for testing security at this site.[34]

RECOMMENDATIONS: Hold this facility to the same upgraded Design Basis Threat as the Department of Energy’s sites.

Shift responsibility for testing security from the NRC to the DOE’s Office of Safety and Security Performance Assurance or as a minimum ensure consistency of both standards in testing.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL COST: at least $180 million


ON-SITE CONSOLIDATION OPPORTUNITIES
Device Assembly Facility (DAF)
click on photo above for larger view
Highly-Enriched Uranium
Materials Facility (HEUMF)
click on photo above for larger view












Y-12 Facility at Oak Ridge

“I know that security at the Y-12 facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is of particular concern to this Subcommittee. These facilities do represent some of the most difficult security problems we face in some parts of the complex – aging, outdated facilities built in the early days of the Cold War – or earlier – when no threat of the current nature was envisioned.”

– NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks, before the House Government Reform National Security Subcommittee, April 27, 2004.[35]

“My concerns about Los Alamos … pale in comparison to the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. … That is a very vulnerable site.”

-- Representative Chris Shays (R-CT), Chairman of the House Government Reform National Security Subcommittee, November 2003.[36]

The Y-12 plant, located near Knoxville, Tennessee, is an 811-acre compound where the DOE manufactures highly-enriched uranium weapons components. Roughly 700,000 people live within a 100 mile radius of the nuclear facility. The plant, which dates from WWII and the Manhattan Project, is the world’s largest repository of highly-enriched uranium in metal form – approximately 400 metric tons. In 1996, 174 metric tons of HEU were declared surplus, meaning that it was no longer necessary for the weapons program. (APPENDIX D)  In his May 2004 speech, then-Secretary Abraham proposed the downblending of 100 additional metric tons (beyond the surplus 174 metric tons) of Y-12’s surplus highly-enriched uranium.

However, according to DOE officials, an initial program review of HEU stockpiles across the complex was stymied by complaints from the Office of Naval Reactors, a nearly-autonomous arm of the DOE, claiming they may need it some day for their reactors.  The long-held territorialism by Naval Reactors dates back to its origins under Admiral Hyman Rickover, and presents a formidable bureaucratic hurdle to the downblending of HEU.

Timeline tests have shown that during an attack, intruders can get from outside the fence line to inside one of the six storage buildings that house the HEU in the time it takes to microwave a cup of coffee. Each of these storage buildings is a prime target for a terrorist attack and security at Y-12 is precarious at best. As the site is currently configured, it would be virtually impossible to protect the Special Nuclear Material under the increased Design Basis Threat.

Y-12’s security problems first came to light in the early 1980s, when congressional investigators discovered that highly-enriched uranium was being stored in wooden buildings. Since then, and especially during the past 18 months, there have been a series of security debacles that are indicative of the systemic problems at Y-12.

The Department tested the security in 2003 and found it “pretty ugly” – even with the older, weaker standards, Y-12’s protective force was unable to defend the site.[37] The same year, the DOE’s Inspector General reported that in order to pass government security tests, the security contractor Wackenhut, as well as previous security contractors, had been cheating on security exercises for two decades.[38] And in September 2004, Wackenhut’s incompetence during a security drill nearly cost several guards their lives. The drill – an exercise where one group of guards acts as terrorists trying to penetrate the facility – almost degenerated into a live-fire engagement. The Wackenhut officials overseeing the drill mistakenly told an armed group of guards not involved in the drill that the mock attackers were indeed real terrorists. The armed guards deployed and came within seconds of opening fire on their own colleagues.[39]

Wackenhut has further compromised security at Y-12 by forcing the security officers to work 65-72 hours per week causing extraordinary fatigue and low morale. Exacerbating this problem has been Wackenhut’s decision to temporarily shift some of Y-12’s protective force to another Wackenhut-protected site, the Nevada Test Site, which is inadequately staffed with security officers and had recently failed a DOE security test. This practice has further taxed the security officers remaining at Y-12.

Another problem is the Department’s current plan for an above-ground storage facility. Until four years ago, while Lockheed Martin still managed Y-12, there were plans to build an underground or bermed storage facility. Virtually all modern storage facilities are underground, including the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) and KUMSEC at Kirtland Air Force Base.  An underground facility would be much harder to penetrate and would serve as a greater deterrent to terrorists.  U.S. Special Operations Command personnel have told POGO that an above-ground facility is a substantially more vulnerable design and that the underground option is the only credible one. Yet in 2004, the current contractor, BWXT, changed the plan to build an underground or bermed (partially underground and covered with 24 feet of earth) facility to that of an above-ground facility.

The Department is currently engaged in site preparation for the above-ground building known as the Highly-Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) to store the plant’s hundreds of tons of HEU.  The DOE Inspector General has criticized the design and cost of this new building, concluding that it will cost more and be less secure than the original plan for a bermed facility. Department officials estimate the cost of the HEUMF to be $313 million. Originally, the bermed facility was going to cost $250 million.  (APPENDIX K & APPENDIX L)

In his report, Inspector General Friedman wrote that the HEUMF design will have:

In 2004, Sandia National Lab was asked by NNSA to evaluate the HEUMF plans. It was ultimately Sandia’s approval of this design that persuaded DOE Headquarters to give the green light for the above-ground building.  POGO has learned, however, that the Sandia study never made a comparison of the HEUMF design to an underground or bermed design, explaining in the small print they did not want to have to consider an entire redesign for the building.  Ironically, it was an earlier Sandia study, the 1999 Hagengruber Report, that had recommended using existing designs from two other government-owned underground facilities to solve the Y-12 storage problem.

There are also plans to build a second building identical to the HEUMF to house the manufacturing of weapons parts from HEU.  It is a poor security practice to create two targets, and inefficient at best to have two separate buildings between which the materials must be transported regularly, creating further risk as well as dramatically increasing security costs.

RECOMMENDATION:  Immediately stop work on the above-ground HEUMF storage facility and reconsider building a bermed facility to store both the non-surplus HEU as well as the new modern manufacturing facility. This would result in substantially better security against terrorist attacks.  A modified DAF design could accommodate both functions.

The schedule for downblending the surplus 174 metric tons (MT) of HEU should be significantly accelerated. Only 34 MTs have been downblended.  Currently, plans are to complete downblending only 64 MTs by 2006.  The rest is not scheduled for downblending until 2016. An additional 100 MTs should also be considered for being declared surplus.  This would leave at least 100 MTs of HEU that could be set aside for naval reactors.  The reduced stockpiles of HEU will significantly reduce storage needs.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $1.2 - 1.67 billion

Pantex Plant

Pantex is the assembly/disassembly facility for nuclear weapons in Amarillo, Texas. It stores thousands of plutonium pits, some from 40-50 year old weapons, in World War II era bunkers in an area called “Zone 4.” Zone 4 borders the end of an Amarillo airport runway. There has been concern for over 30 years about a plane, either accidentally or intentionally, crashing into these bunkers and causing a major radiological dispersal of plutonium.

For years, security officials have talked about instituting no-fly zones over Pantex, or closing certain runways at the Amarillo airport, but have never done so.  However, “no-fly” zones will not stop a suicidal terrorist.

RECOMMENDATION: These plutonium pits will never be used in either refurbished or new nuclear weapons.  They should be declared surplus plutonium and immobilized as soon as possible at Pantex.  In the meantime, plutonium in Zone 4 should be consolidated on-site to the more appropriately-located and secure Zone 12.  Reconsider building the Plutonium Immobilization Plant and the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility underground at Pantex, particularly given the proximity to the airport.  Concerns about the impact to the aquifer must be taken into account.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $140 million


UNUSED SECURE STORAGE SITES

Device Assembly Facility (DAF) at the Nevada Test Site

“… recent significant physical security performance problems at Nevada Test Site that had … not been detected by NNSA oversight combine to suggest a systematic problem [in the complex].”

-- Deputy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow and NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks, January 21, 2005.[40]

Device Assembly Facility (DAF)
at the Nevada Test Site
Photo courtesy of Globalsecurity.org
click on photo above for larger view
The 300,000 square-foot Device Assembly Facility (DAF), a partially-underground bermed facility at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), is the most secure storage facility in the country.  It was built in the early 1990s where both the Los Alamos and Livermore Labs could assemble their nuclear weapons for underground testing. By the time it was completed, the test program had ended.  It has been operational since 1996, but empty. DOE is in the process of moving the SNM from Los Alamos’ TA-18 to the DAF, making it a Category I facility.  While shipments have begun, there have not yet been any shipments of weapons quantities of materials.  This move is scheduled to be completed by the end of September 2005.

However, NNSA and security contractor Wackenhut did not increase the protective force in preparation for these materials, nor did they conduct adequate training or performance testing.  In August 2004, a force-on-force was conducted by DOE Headquarters.  Wackenhut guards were not able to defend the facility.  In fact, during the test, there was a friendly-fire incident in which one guard “shot” another with laser equipment. The incident degenerated into a fist fight.  As a result of the security failures, the NNSA security director at the site was forced to retire. Wackenhut has had to transfer guards from an already-depleted guard force at Y-12 to bolster the force at the DAF.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Increase the size of the protective force, and increase training and improve their defensive strategy.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL COST: $90 million

 Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL)

“The [Fuel Processing Restoration (FPR)] offers an opportunity to consolidate materials into a secure facility and minimize resource expenditures at other locations.”

-- Internal Department of Energy document, December 2004.

Idaho Building 691
click on photo above for larger view
INEEL is one of only two facilities in the entire nuclear weapons complex to have an appropriately-secure repository for Special Nuclear Materials. The great irony is that this facility is the only site in the complex expected to meet its schedule for de-inventorying (by Summer 2005).

Newly re-discovered is a 170,000 square-foot underground facility – it had been largely forgotten by DOE Headquarters. The facility, INEELs Fuel Processing Restoration facility, or Building 691, was designed for long-term storage and security. Built in a remote area, DOE started constructing Building 691 in the 1980s as an underground facility for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. In 1992, the program was abandoned and construction halted. Incredibly, Building 691 was slated for destruction – or as Department personnel strangely refer to it, “rubblization” – until government officials began questioning whether this facility could fulfill most of the needs for underground storage for the complex. (APPENDIX M)

The Department’s current construction and demolition plans are logically invalid: NNSA plans to construct a costly and poorly designed above-ground facility at Y-12 to store Special Nuclear Materials, despite criticism of the proposed facility by the Department’s own Inspector General and other top Energy officials; at the same time, until 2004, the Department planned to “rubblize” the massive and secure underground Building 691 – a building which is all-but completed. The cost to finish it would be minimal. Clearly these two operations make no sense, and they are illustrative of the bumbling approach DOE officials often take to nuclear security.

The Department has now set aside $10 million for a feasibility study on using Building 691.  DOE officials believe, “Conservatively, based on the volume available, approximately 130 Metric Tons (MT) of Plutonium or 260 MT of Uranium could be stored in the facility.”[41] This underground facility has numerous benefits, notably that it has never been used, which means there is no threat of the building being contaminated by previously stored nuclear weapons materials. (APPENDIX M)

When construction was terminated on Building 691 thirteen years ago, over $450 million had already been spent on the construction of this facility. At the time, Lab officials estimated it would cost $12 million to finish the project (this included completing the fire suppression system and electrical and plumbing systems), approximately $20 million in today’s dollars.

Department officials now estimate it would take $100 million to $200 million to complete the Idaho facility in order to store significant quantities of weapons-grade materials, but serious questions have been raised about the validity of these estimates. No one has yet explained why the cost is so high. Even using the estimate of $100 to 200 million, officials believe the “payback period” would be less than six years after the facility becomes fully operational. (APPENDIX M)

INEEL contains 1.4 metric tons of Special Nuclear Materials. There is no weapons-related need for this material, nor is there a research related requirement for it. The Lab is scheduled to complete de-inventorying all weapons-grade material to Savannah River and Y-12 by mid-2005.

RECOMMENDATION: NNSA should immediately prepare INEEL Building 691 for use by 2006.  Serious consideration should be given to moving Argonne West’s NASA space battery mission over to another of INEEL’s existing and well-designed but under-used buildings, Building 651.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL COST: $150 million


FACILITIES THAT SHOULD ULTIMATELY BE DE-INVENTORIED

 Argonne National Laboratory, West

In February 2005, INEEL and the Argonne National Laboratory, West were merged into one, becoming Idaho National Laboratory.  As a result of this merger, the significant security vulnerabilities existing at Argonne West have now become INEEL’s problem.  At the same time, there are two unused facilities at INEEL that could be the answer to a number of problems existing around the complex.

In 2004, DOE transferred the production of nuclear generators, which use Plutonium-238 (irradiated Neptunium-237), for NASA’s space program to Argonne West. Plutonium-238 is considered extremely lethal and presents an enormous radiological sabotage (“dirty bomb”) concern, although not an IND concern.  Argonne West is in the initial stages of building a facility with vaults designed to store this SNM. Unfortunately, they overlooked the possibility of using INEEL’s Building 651 for this program.

In addition, Argonne West has more than nine tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium. There is no weapons-related need for this material. The Lab spends more money to protect this unneeded Special Nuclear Material than it does on its actual programs.

Two years ago, when DOE’s Independent Oversight office tested Argonne West’s security, they found it unsatisfactory – the facility would be unable to protect the tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium from a terrorist attack.

Argonne West has had serious problems developing a new site security plan and tactical plan for the new DBT.  Their analysis to date indicates that they are woefully understaffed even to deal with the pre-9/11 threats.

RECOMMENDATION: DOE should temporarily augment Argonne West’s security force, which is seriously depleted, with security force members from INEEL.

Because there is no nuclear weapons-related mission requiring any Special Nuclear Material at Argonne West, the more than nine tons of weapons material should be de-inventoried before any additional money is spent on expensive security and structural upgrades. As soon as Building 691 at INEEL is ready, Argonne West’s Special Nuclear Materials, as well as its protective force, should be relocated to the INEEL underground facility.

Serious consideration should be given to moving Argonne West’s NASA space battery mission over to INEEL.  Otherwise, this work will be the only program requiring SNM at the poorly defended Argonne West.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $75 million

 Savannah River Site

Savannah River is located about 20 miles south of Aiken, South Carolina and spreads across 315 square miles. Almost 500,000 people live within 100 miles of Savannah River. It formerly produced plutonium and tritium for the weapons program, but the production reactors have been shut down since the early 1990s. Things are in serious flux at Savannah River, where plans for the Plutonium Immobilization Plant have been cancelled; and plans for the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility, the Modern Pit Facility, and the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (in which DOE would turn 34 tons of plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) for nuclear power reactors) are stalled.[42] (Appendix N) In addition to the 34 tons of plutonium slated to be turned into MOX, there remains at least 50 additional metric tons of plutonium that should be declared excess and immobilized.

Savannah River is the U.S.’s main repository for plutonium and stores it in three locations on site, although the majority of its plutonium is stored in the old K Reactor building. DOE plans to consolidate all of Savannah River ’s plutonium from the other areas into the K Reactor building.  However, if DOE plans to move ahead with building the new facilities, Savannah River will again have several Category I targets to protect.

Generally, security at Savannah River has been better than at most of the Category I sites in the nuclear complex.  However, currently there is no nuclear weapons mission for most of the plutonium stored there.

RECOMMENDATION: Reconsider the plans to turn plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel. The plans are years behind schedule and costs are rising dramatically. Furthermore, MOX fuel would remain a terrorist target while being produced and while being transported and stored at the commercial reactors where it is slated to be irradiated.

Rather than creating a new mission for SNM at Savannah River , reconsider building the Plutonium Immobilization Plant and the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility at Pantex instead, where the vast majority of the plutonium pits are currently stored.[43] 

As soon as is feasible, begin immobilization of the 34 metric tons of plutonium that have been declared surplus. Consider declaring an additional 50 tons as surplus, both from Savannah River and Pantex.

Transfer the remaining plutonium, potentially required for new pits, to INEEL’s Building 691 or the underground DAF at the Nevada Test Site. Ultimately de-inventory Savannah River of all Special Nuclear Materials.

Financial Implications of Changes:

TOTAL SAVINGS: $460 million




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updated:Wednesday, May 17, 2006