Pantex

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Nuclear weapons dismantling plant's safety under scrutiny

Safety Violations, pollution concern some residents of Amarillo

By BETSY BLANEY
Associated Press (Houston Chronicle)
June 19, 2004

AMARILLO -- It's a peaceful picture of remote Texas Panhandle
countryside. The amber wheat fields, the grazing cattle, the smattering
of farmhouses. 

Then there's the nuclear plant. 

Largely tucked away from public view, technicians work with radioactive
and explosive materials around the clock at the 25-square-mile Pantex
complex -- the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly
plant. 

Pantex became part of the landscape over the past 60 years. Built in
1942, its initial mission was to load and pack conventional artillery
shells and bombs for use during World War II. Workers assembled nuclear
weapons there during the Cold War and then began dismantling them during
the 1990s. 

The plant, the fourth-largest employer in the Amarillo area, provides
jobs for 3,500 workers, with salaries averaging about $50,000. But some
of the 250,000 people living near the plant have become increasingly
concerned about how Pantex's operations affect public safety and the
environment. 

Federal inspectors found two safety violations in the past several
months that were classified as minor but raise serious questions about
employee training and procedures. 

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2635847

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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