In an effort to cut down on possible targets for a nuclear terrorist attack, the U.S. Department of Energy may remove Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s plutonium and uranium reserves—a move that could transform the lab’s core mission and its future under UC management.
In a congressional hearing yesterday, representatives from the General Accounting Office [Read GAO report] testified that a terrorist threat to a nuclear weapons facility may be far greater than anticipated.
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The Department of
Energy (DOE) has long recognized that a successful terrorist attack on a
site containing nuclear weapons or the material used in nuclear weapons—called
special nuclear material—could have devastating consequences for the
site and its surrounding communities. Weapons or special
nuclear material are present at the three design laboratories—the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico; the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in Livermore, California; and the Sandia National Laboratory in
Albuquerque, New Mexico—and two production sites—the Pantex Plant in
Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, operated by the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—a separately organized agency
within DOE. |
The Department of Energy has traditionally prepared for preventing theft of nuclear weapons materials, but an accounting office report released yesterday suggests that a suicide team of terrorists could barricade themselves in the facility and detonate a makeshift nuclear weapon—a concern for Livermore lab, which is about 40 miles southeast of Berkeley.
“Without question, DOE nuclear warhead production plants, test facilities, research labs, storage locations and decommissioned sites are attractive targets for terrorists determined to turn our technology against us, and willing to die while doing so,” Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said at the hearing.
Consolidating nuclear material storage would improve security by reducing the number of sites and the cost of protecting them, Shays said.
Lawrence Livermore lab officials dismissed the concerns about a possible terrorist attack, saying the lab is addressing a number of credible threats and has increased its security force.
“We received the highest rating possible through the Office of Security,” said lab spokesperson Lynda Seaver. “We feel the lab is very safe.”
Removing Livermore lab’s plutonium reserves could fundamentally shift the mission of the lab, which has focused on nuclear weapons defense since its inception in the 1950s.
The proposal could spark a shift in opinion about whether the university should bid to manage the lab, said Lawrence Pitts, chair of the system-wide Academic Senate, UC’s faculty decision-making body.
“If the labs changed their character in their totality, would that change the bidding process? The answer is absolutely sure,” Pitts said.
Much of the argument against a Livermore lab contract bid has centered on whether a public university should have a hand in developing and stockpiling nuclear weapons.
“If the University of California manages the Livermore and Los Alamos labs, they have an absolute responsibility not to lend the mantle of academic respectability to the horrific truths of designing nuclear weapons,” said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, a community organization against nuclear weapons research, in a campus forum last week.
For more than half a century, UC has managed three national laboratories for the U.S. government. But the Department of Energy decided last year to open the three management contracts to competitive bidding from other universities and corporations.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory went through a similar change in the 1980s when it converted from a nuclear weapons lab to a purely scientific research facility.
In contrast to the congressional push, Seaver said the Department of Energy officials at the lab are proposing to increase the lab’s plutonium storage at Lawrence Livermore and triple the amount that can be experimented on in one room at a time.
UC is proceeding as if it will bid for Livermore lab, but the final decision will be up to the UC Board of Regents within the next year.
source: http://www.daiylcal.org/article.asp?=15121 8apr04
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