Thirty-five miles from
operates as one of two UC-managed
nuclear weapons research facilities. As part of a proposal to overhaul the structure of the nation’s
nuclear stockpile, the National Nuclear Security Administration has selected
LANL as a site for plutonium research and development.
The proposal, called Complex Transformation, is an effort to
renovate and alter the current
nuclear-weapons complex. Currently, there are eight major facilities involved
in nuclear-weapons safety, including LANL. Most of the buildings at these
facilities, which are remnants of the Cold War era, have aged drastically and
become too expensive to maintain. The proposal, therefore, aims to remedy this
situation by merging nuclear materials operations to only five sites by 2012.
Complex Transformation also intends to improve the
efficiency and speed of the dismantling of weapons and will reduce the number
of workers directly supporting weapons missions by 20 to 30 percent.
According to NNSA spokesman John Broehm, one reason for
implementing the draft proposal is to address the significant decrease in the
nuclear stockpile.
“The nuclear stockpile has almost been cut in half and we
need to reflect that fact by consolidating the eight sites and knocking down
the old buildings,” Broehm said.
Broehm added that the work on plutonium would also have to
be consolidated into one area and LANL would take on most of that work.
Besides undertaking plutonium research and development, LANL
would also be involved in supercomputing and nuclear-weapons design and
engineering. Additionally, the laboratory plans to reduce nuclear operations by
50 percent over the next 10 years.
NNSA chose LANL partly because of its longstanding involvement
in plutonium operations.
“LANL is one of the largest and newer research facilities
that encompasses about 36 square miles,” LANL spokesman Kevin Roark said. “This
is quite large when compared to the Berkeley National Laboratory, which is only
one square mile.”
Many nonproliferation groups have criticized not only LANL’s
operations, but also the Complex Transformation proposal itself. The Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation founded the campaign UC Nuclear Free, with the goal of
ending the university’s involvement in the development, production and research
of nuclear weapons at LANL and also Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
NAPF Youth Initiative Outreach Coordinator Steve Stormoen
said the proposal contains provisions calling for the building of new facilities
that would produce plutonium pits. These “pits” are the core of any nuclear
warhead.
“Complex Transformation is just a new political scheme
cooked up by people friendly to the labs to see an increase in the budget at
labs and more money going to the nuclear business,” Stormoen said.
Stormoen added that although the number of nuclear weapons
on alert might be reduced, Complex Transformation and the UC-managed nuclear
laboratories violate the conditions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“Reducing the stockpile of nuclear weapons to the point
where we could destroy the world two or three times over rather than eight
times over is not meaningful reduction,” Stormoen said. “What would be
meaningful reduction is actual nuclear disarmament according to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
LANL, however, states on its Web site that it will not be
expanding its plutonium-pit-manufacturing complex and that the actual
production of pits will be determined based on need.
Complex Transformation is still in its public comment phase,
during which citizens are able to attend public hearings where they can voice
their opinions on the draft proposal. The public comment period has been
extended to April 30.
