For immediate release 10 June 2019

Update to 4 June press release

Administration announces plan to conduct environmental analysis of plutonium warhead core (“pit”) production in SC

No comparable commitment in NM

Contact: Greg Mello, Los Alamos Study Group, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell

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Albuquerque, NM– The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the nuclear production and nonproliferation arm of the Department of Energy (DOE), announced today its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for plutonium warhead core (“pit”) production at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

No commitment to an EIS or supplemental EIS was made for pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico.

NNSA stated it will also prepare a NEPA “Supplement Analysis” (SA) for pit production on a national basis, examining the question of whether NNSA should supplement a 2008 national environmental analysis. NNSA will provide an opportunity for public comment on a draft of that document.

Expanded pit production at LANL will also be the subject of a SA, so far without a comparable commitment to solicit or consider comments from the State, tribes, and citizens on whether NNSA should conduct further environmental analysis of alternatives to expanded pit production at LANL.

Study Group Director Greg Mello:

“In its announcement NNSA provides neither a fresh analysis of impacts of alternatives to expanded pit production at LANL, nor any formal opportunity for the State, tribes, and citizens to weigh in on whether such an analysis should be conducted.

“In South Carolina, by contrast, NNSA proposes a fresh environmental analysis – even though the facility involved was the subject of environmental analysis just three years ago.

“Here in New Mexico NNSA proposes to write what amounts to a ‘memo to file’ as to whether New Mexico deserves a fresh look at expanded pit production. NNSA is cutting the State, tribes, and citizens out of the loop.

“While we are pleased NNSA acknowledges some of our concerns – agreeing, for example, that LANL is legally limited to a maximum production rate of 20 pits per year – NNSA should also acknowledge right now that it cannot rely on analyses written more than a decade ago under assumptions no longer valid.

“We urge NNSA to proceed directly, without delay, first to the nationwide analysis DOE previously agreed to conduct if pit production was ever pursued at more than one site, or at a larger scale, than was agreed in federal court in 1998, and second, to a site-specific analysis at LANL.

“Both kinds of analyses must be based on facilities and conditions that actually exist, not on ones NNSA hoped might be built but weren’t. NNSA cannot legally calculate risks and impacts based on old – or new – dreams. ‘Wishing on a star’ isn’t enough.

“NNSA should skip the ‘supplement analysis’ process – that is, ‘analyzing whether to analyze’ –and proceed directly to the ‘hard look’ at alternatives and impacts required by law.”

The analyses NNSA proposes to write are SAs for the 2008 Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (CTSPEIS) (with public comment) and 2008 Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for LANL (without public comment).

Both processes concluded with records of decision (RODs) that limited pit production to a maximum of 20 ppy at LANL, as did RODs for an earlier and a later analysis (see RODs of Sept. 20, 1999; Sept. 26, 2008; Dec. 19, 2008; July 10, 2009).

The significant legal issues which underlie today’s announcement were summarized in a February 2019 letter to NNSA and Pentagon officials from this organization, as well as previously.

***ENDS***