Security costs factor in weapons site consolidation

A preliminary report from a federal advisory task force released two weeks ago suggested consolidating the most critical parts of the weapons complex, now spread across eight facilities, into a single location to reduce terrorist targets and speed development of warheads.

Bodman said Monday before making his first official visit to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and Oak Ridge National Laboratory that he was “precluded from opining” on the report until it is formally presented by the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, possibly next month.

“Having said that,” he added, “it is clear that the material in there was very thoughtfully prepared. It was carefully done. And it addresses a series of challenges that we have in managing a nuclear weapons complex for this country.”

The report may target the complex’s three weapons design laboratories in New Mexico and California, but it also is considering production and storage sites at Y-12 and in South Carolina, Texas and Nevada, and a non-nuclear facility in Kansas City.

Among the challenges are demands on security, said Bodman, a former deputy treasury secretary and business executive who became energy secretary Feb. 1.

“The security world changed on 9-11,” he said. “We are spending an increasing (amount) of our entire budget on security. The numbers are getting larger and larger as we are concerned with the potential risks that we are going to have to deal with.”

The Energy Department estimates nearly 15 percent of the weapons complex budget is now being spent on safeguarding nuclear weapons and special materials, such as plutonium and uranium.

“So one of the issues that will be an important part of that report is cost (of security),” Bodman said of the complex consolidation study.

Since money for security “has got to come out of somewhere,” the secretary said, finding ways to compensate for this growing budget item “tends to call for consolidation” within the complex.

“So we will look hard at that,” he said.

Y-12, a creation of the bomb-building Manhattan Project of World War II, today makes components for every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The site also is the government’s principal storehouse for bomb-grade uranium.

Construction is under way on a new storage complex for enriched uranium at Y-12, and managing contractor BWXT has proposed a new $750 million manufacturing center to be built next to it. Bodman said he would get a briefing during his tour.

Miscues by Y-12’s guard force have drawn headlines, but DOE officials say they have seen dramatic improvements.

“Based on information I have received, Y-12 is very adequately secured and we have appropriate security plans in place,” Bodman said.

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DOE: http://www.doe.gov