[CPEO-MEF] Re: "Plutonium won't stay in Livermore" (CA)

[Christine Ziebold <c_ziebold@yahoo.com>]

...so it will go to Oak Ridge? see below 
- maybe this had been posted on the listserv and I didnt see it.-

http://www.joplinglobe.com/print.php?story_id=233581
March 20, 2006
Secrecy shrouds work
Eagle-Picher plant, Mid-America take part in nuclear program
By Wally Kennedy
Globe Business Writer

The stainless-steel boxes are manufactured in Joplin. They're shipped
to Quapaw, Okla., where they are lined with a boron-based material. 

>From there, the boxes go to the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak
Ridge, Tenn. 

That's about all you can find out locally about the national security
project that involves two local companies, the EaglePicher Technologies
boron plant at Quapaw and Mid-America Precision Products in Joplin. 

The managers of those companies, Jim Hall at the boron plant, and Doug
Wright at Mid-America, say they would like to talk about the work their
companies are doing for the National Nuclear Security Administration,
but a shield of secrecy has been placed over the project. 

That shield was penetrated earlier this month by Frank Munger, a writer
for the Knoxville News-Sentinel in Knoxville, Tenn. Munger, who has
written about U.S. Department of Energy projects at Oak Ridge for many
years, noticed a reference to the project in federal budget documents.
After weeks of probing, he uncovered information about the project that
could be published. 

Munger, in a recent interview, said it is difficult and time consuming
to get information about what is going on at Oak Ridge and that
government workers have been fired for releasing details that at the
time appeared to be unimportant, but later proved to be sensitive or
classified information about the nuclear-weapons plant. 

Steven Wyatt, a public relations spokesman for the DOE, said secrecy
actually is written into the deal with private companies. 

"The people in Joplin and Quapaw who know about this work cannot talk
about it. That's part of the contract," he said. "Everything associated
with nuclear weapons is very, very sensitive from manufacturing, to
storage, to accountability. It's all tightly controlled.'' 

Wyatt confirmed that Mid-America in Joplin is constructing rackable
storage boxes that are lined with a boron-based ceramic material by
EaglePicher at Quapaw. 

"Our plan is to place highly-enriched uranium in the rackable boxes and
place the materials in a facility that is now under construction at Oak
Ridge. This highly-enriched uranium is used in nuclear weapons,'' he
said. 

The government is spending millions on the boxes to house the nation's
stockpile of bomb-grade uranium. According to Munger, about 900 of the
boxes have been purchased. The proposed budget for 2007 includes money
to buy another 500. 

Wyatt would not specify how many of the boxes will be needed at the
storage complex, which is scheduled for completion early next year. The
uranium storehouse will cost $350 million to construct. 

The special filler material in the boxes is EaglePicher's BoroBond4.
According to information released by EaglePicher early last year, the
company was awarded a $6.2 million subcontract by BWXT Y-12, LLC, the
operating contractor at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak
Ridge, to cast BoroBond4 in the boxes. 

Munger said BoroBond4, which took EaglePicher more than four years to
develop, is "a nuclear poison'' in that it absorbs neutrons to enhance
the safety of storing nearly pure U-235 - uranium's fissionable
isotope. 

Wyatt said the National Nuclear Security Administration has spent about
$8 million acquiring the new storage boxes. Budget documents for 2007
indicate that $10 million is being proposed to purchase another 500
boxes and to accelerate some related security activities at Y-12.

BoroBond4, made by Eagle-Picher in Joplin, reduces the storage space
requirements for bomb-grade uranium. 

The material permits enriched uranium to be stored in a smaller space,
reducing the size and cost of the uranium-storage site.


-------------------
and maybe it will go into the 125 new Nuclear Weapons/ year?
-----------------------
Bush Administration Unveils Plans to Produce 125 New Nuclear Weapons a
Year:
Seeks Return to Cold War Nuclear Weapons Capabilities

David Culp, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)
April 6, 2006

The Bush administration unveiled plans Wednesday to produce 125 new
nuclear weapons a year.  The plans include building a new nuclear bomb
plant at an existing weapons site.  The multi-billion dollar proposal
was presented at a Capitol Hill hearing by the National Nuclear
Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous federal agency in
charge of nuclear weapons.

NNSA plans to consolidate its plutonium operations into one new bomb
factory with the capacity to produce 125 nuclear weapons per year. 
Potential sites for the so-called Consolidated Plutonium Center include
the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Pantex Plant in Texas,
Nevada Test Site, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The agency also announced that it was canceling construction of the
multi-billion dollar Modern Pit Facility at the Savannah River Site,
but would instead include plutonium "pit" production in the larger new
bomb plant.  The new bomb factory would also house plutonium R&D
activities now occurring at the Livermore National Laboratory in
California and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The new facility, slated for completion in 2022, would also be the
national storage site for plutonium. The Oak Ridge Y-12 plant in
Tennessee would be designated as the national storage site for weapons
uranium.  Research activities at the two weapons labs not involving
large quantities of weapons material would continue.  The government's
program for consolidating nuclear weapons materials is being driven
primarily by security concerns since 9/11.

NNSA deputy administrator Tom D'Agostino told a panel of the House
Armed Services Committee yesterday that the plan "would restore us to a
level of capability comparable to what we had during the Cold War."

D'Agostino praised the new nuclear weapon called the "Reliable
Replacement Warhead" (RRW) as the "enabler" for the revived nuclear
weapons complex.  "RRW, we believe, will provide enormous leverage for
a more efficient and responsive infrastructure..."

"For all the talk about eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the
administration is proposing that the U.S. return to Cold War era levels
of nuclear weapons production capability," said David Culp, senior
lobbyist at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. "This is a
dangerous step in the wrong direction and will spur a new nuclear arms
race.  The U.S. cannot increase nuclear weapons production and tell the
rest of the world to not build these weapons."

[The NNSA press release and testimony on the proposed plan is on their
website at www.nnsa.doe.gov <http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/> .]
-----------
Christine Ziebold MD PhD MPH
Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant RAB community member






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