Group fears nuclear consolidation in Idaho

BOISE – With the Idaho National Laboratory scheduled to dispose of the last enriched uranium stored at the sprawling desert complex by this summer, a nuclear watchdog group is criticizing prospects the site could become a repository for more bomb-grade material from other federal labs.

“One moment the Department of Energy is praising efforts to take special nuclear materials out of the state and that they’ve made the site safer,” said Jeremy Maxand, director of the Snake River Alliance in Boise. “Then, in the same breath they say they are studying shipping these materials back into the state and sticking them back on the site.”

An advisory task force to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is scheduled to complete a report next month evaluating the potential cost savings and security enhancements from consolidating the nation’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

Hundreds of tons of nuclear material no longer needed for weapons manufacturing and destined for disposal to support international nonproliferation agreements are stored at more than a dozen federal labs and installations around the country.

Officials say reducing the number of places where the material is stored until it is converted into less dangerous forms may reduce the likelihood of a potential attack by terrorists.

Linton Brooks, administrator of the federal agency that oversees America’s nuclear bomb stockpile, recently told Congress the Bush administration is evaluating any legal barriers and construction requirements to using two buildings on the 890-square-mile INL complex in eastern Idaho for interim storage of bomb-grade uranium relocated from other installations.

“These facilities may offer exceptional opportunity to consolidate materials and components in a location with robust security features in place,” Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on nuclear site safety in March.

One of the structures is Building 691, a $450 million facility that has three levels of underground cells that were created to hold reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. Construction was halted on the building in 1992 when the U.S. decided to cease reprocessing. The building was locked and never used.

An analysis by the Energy Department’s Office of Security and Safety Performance found Building 691 could hold 130 metric tons of plutonium or 260 metric tons of enriched uranium. To convert the structure into a repository for bomb-grade uranium, the security office estimated construction improvements of $100 million to $200 million would be needed.

The other Idaho facility being evaluated for potential storage is Building 651, an older vault surrounded by reinforced concrete that has been used to house enriched uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. The remaining material stored in that bunker is expected to be disposed of by this summer, said Brad Bugger, a spokesman for the Idaho office of the Energy Department.

Maxand said the Idaho site should not be rewarded with new shipments of weapons-grade nuclear material after “de-inventorying” its stockpile ahead of schedule.

“There is no good place to put something like this,” he said. “Idaho has a very strong track record of opposing any project that relates to nuclear weapons, and this is one of those projects.”

A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration said any decision whether to relocate enriched uranium or plutonium stockpiles to Idaho or any other Energy Department site won’t be made until Bodman reviews the recommendations of the advisory board.

A Washington, D.C.-based activist group has released its own analysis of consolidating nuclear bomb materials. It also promotes the two INL buildings as leading candidates to become repositories for some of the enriched uranium and plutonium surplus because of their inherent security features.

“Idaho has these great facilities that are perfect for this, but the irony was that until DOE realized what they had, those buildings were scheduled to be demolished,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.