Atomic Anniversary Brings U.S. Nuclear Official to New Mexico

“Los Alamos is facing of a 2026 deadline to begin producing at least 30 of the plutonium cores a year — a mission that has the support of the most senior Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation as the work is expected to bring jobs and billions of federal dollars to update buildings or construct new factories. The effort has drawn much criticism from watchdog groups that long have been concerned about the lab’s safety record, missed deadlines, repeated cost overruns and the pace of cleaning up contamination resulting from decades of bomb making and nuclear research.”

BY: SUSAN MONTOYA BRIAN | apnews.com

ALBUQUERQUE — The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration is in New Mexico this week as part of a nationwide tour of the federal government’s nuclear security operations.

The visit by Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Trinity test in Southern New Mexico, which marked the world’s first atomic blast on July 16, 1945. She’s scheduled to lead a commemoration Thursday at the historic V-Site at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where early testing and some assembly of the atomic bomb took place.

Gordon-Hagerty has been spearheading the federal government’s recent efforts to resume and ramp up production of the plutonium cores that are used to trigger nuclear weapons. The work will be split between Los Alamos and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Los Alamos is facing of a 2026 deadline to begin producing at least 30 of the plutonium cores a year — a mission that has the support of the most senior Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation as the work is expected to bring jobs and billions of federal dollars to update buildings or construct new factories.

The effort has drawn much criticism from watchdog groups that long have been concerned about the lab’s safety record, missed deadlines, repeated cost overruns and the pace of cleaning up contamination resulting from decades of bomb making and nuclear research.

The latest round of funding for the plutonium project is being hashed out now by Congress. Some lawmakers are concerned that the nuclear agency hasn’t developed a master schedule that outlines all the activities related to plutonium pit production.

There also are concerns that the agency doesn’t have contingency plans should it not meet production milestones.

“Given the NNSA’s continuing challenges in constructing large, complex nuclear facilities on time and on budget, coupled with the extremely constrained timeframe and planned use of expedited processes and procedures, the risk of not meeting pit production milestones is high,” states a report by the House Appropriations Committee.

The report notes that similar concerns were included in a 2019 independent assessment that indicating there were no options that would result in 80 pits being made per year by 2030.

Under the nuclear agency’s plan, Los Alamos would be responsible for making 30 pits a year and the rest would be produced at Savannah River.

Gordon-Hagerty has acknowledged past delays but has said modernization of the nuclear arsenal is among the top priorities as most of the plutonium cores in the stockpile date to the 1970s and 1980s.

The mission of producing the pits has been based at Los Alamos for years but none have been made since 2011, when the lab completed the last of 29 plutonium cores for Navy submarine missiles. The most ever made at Los Alamos in a year was 11.

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