Consolidating nuke stockpiles proposed

BOISE – To guard against terrorists storming a U.S. weapons lab and setting off a crude nuclear device, the Bush administration is considering consolidating much of the nation’s plutonium and bomb-grade uranium at a few highly secure sites, including concrete bunkers in Idaho.

Currently, the material is scattered at 13 sites around the country.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is expected to get an advisory board’s report next month on the potential cost savings and security improvements from combining the hundreds of tons of weapons fuel.

Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based group that has lobbied for tighter security at Energy Department labs, proposes removing all weapons-grade material from six sites: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.; Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M.; the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland; Savannah River near Aiken, S.C., Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Argonne National Laboratory West near Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The material would then be placed with existing stockpiles or in unused bunkers under beefed-up security at seven sites: the Idaho National Laboratory, the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas; Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.; the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas; the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge; the BWXT Nuclear Products Division in Lynchburg, Va., and Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tenn.