The federal government wants to do nuclear weapons testing and bio-warfare agent experimentation on Site 300, near the city of Tracy, California. Tracy, 19 miles from Livermore, home of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, is in the northern part of California’s San Joaquin Valley, some of the world’s most fertile farmland. It is a fast-growing city of the outer San Francisco Bay Area. The 2000 census pegged the population at just over 56,000 people. Five years later, a new estimate found that Tracy had added over 20,000 people.¹

A 5,500-unit housing development is planned for an area only 1 mile from the fence line of Site 300.² Like its neighbors in the Bay Area, Tracy is in earthquake country. The Black Butte Fault, the Midway Fault, the Carnegie Corral Fault and the San Joaquin Fault are all sources of seismic hazard in the immediate area. And Tracy would be endangered by a “well-placed” quake along the San Andreas, Hayward, or Calaveras faults.³

Site 300 is a 7000-acre (11 square-mile) open field owned by the Lawrence Livermore National Lab that is used as a high explosives testing range. It is located on Corral Hollow Road on the outskirts of Tracy, near the heavily-trafficked Interstate 580. Earthquake faults, such as the Elk Ravine Fault, traverse the whole area. Additionally, the area is prone to wildfires.⁴

A Witches’ Brew of Bugs and Bombs

Site 300 has been on the EPA’s “Superfund” list since 1990. It is polluted with many toxic and radioactive materials, including tritium (radioactive hydrogen) and uranium-238. Despite over 25 years on the list, the government still has no cleanup plans for Site 300.⁵

In early March, 2007, community members and environmentalists celebrated a victory when the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District rescinded its decision to allow the Lawrence Livermore Lab to test 350-pound bombs on Site 300. The planned tests were to have simulated full scale nuclear weapons blasts. The district withdrew its permission after learning from local residents that the bombs would contain depleted uranium. The lab did not mention the use of depleted uranium in its initial permit application.⁶

“Generally, depleted uranium is not considered radioactive because its radioactivity level is so low as to be equal to or below background level,” said Lawrence Livermore Lab spokesman David Schwoegler. “It is in the ballast of every sailboat and jetliner and commercial use.”⁷ However, having depleted uranium contained in boat and airplane ballast is different from letting it travel through the air on the wind, and settle on the ground where it might contaminate groundwater, the neighboring farm produce, and the wild plants eaten by the animals in the area. “If these huge explosions had been allowed to go forward, the hills, nearby waterways, the workers and the surrounding community would have all been put at risk,” said Loulena Miles, staff attorney for Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a nuclear watchdog group in the area.⁸

But while plans for explosives testing are on hold while the federal government decides how it will respond to District’s decision, other plans with respect to Site 300 are going forward. On April 16, the Department of Homeland Security sent its “site selection” team to Site 300 to evaluate the site as a home for high-containment biowarfare agent research. Site 300 is one of 17 locations being evaluated for a proposed lab that is slated to cover 500,000 square feet.⁹

Consider that many communities do not want a “big box” Wal-Mart store in their neighborhoods. This lab would be equal in area to five Wal-Mart big boxes. And whereas Wal-Mart contains things that people find useful, such as groceries, toilet paper and DVDs, the lab would contain such unappealing items as anthrax, bubonic plague and Q fever in the BSL-3 portion of the lab, where potentially lethal infectious or exotic pathogens are kept. The BSL-4 portion of the lab would harbor organisms that cause diseases for which there is no known cure, such as the Ebola and Marburg viruses and Central European tick-borne encephalitis.¹⁰ Not exactly the kinds of things you go looking for when you visit a Wal-Mart.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that “community acceptance” will be one of the selection criteria for the lab. The Tracy City Council has voted against the lab. Additional opposition has come in the forms of petitions, letters to the editor, letter-grams, e-mails, and phone calls to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. Some 7000 people are estimated to have participated in some form of opposition to placing the lab on Site 300.¹¹ “What part of ‘no’ does the Department of Homeland Security not understand?” asks Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley Cares.¹²

It remains to be seen for how long “community acceptance” will remain a selection criteria for DHS. There is heavy opposition to locating a high-containment biowarfare lab in any sizable community, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boston’s Back Bay. DHS might want to locate these labs in areas where there is a good chance of attracting the highly-educated personnel required to run such a facility. But situating such a lab in an urban area where such highly-educated people are likely to be, presents potential danger to millions. According to DHS, the potentially-affected community whose acceptance of the Department seeks is the community of people “living within a 60-mile radius” of a proposed facility. For Site 300, the potential community is over 7 million people.¹³

DHS wants to scare people into thinking that terrorists are busy designing biological weapons and we have to know what the terrorists are up to. This in itself is terrorism. The evildoers that the current administration would have us believe are lurking behind every tree would have to be extremely sophisticated to work with the organisms that one finds in BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories. So sophisticated, in fact, that they would likely be state-sponsored. And by hiding biological research within classified nuclear weapons research facilities, the government leaves itself open to reasonable suspicion that it is the United States, not “terrorists”, that wants to develop offensive biological capabilities rather than to defend against them.

References

1 City of Tracy official web site
2 Press release, Tri-Valley CAREs, April 16, 2007
3 Wikipedia entry for Tracy, California
4 Google Maps
5 Press release, Tri-Valley CAREs, April 16, 2007, Op. Cit.
6 Quick Facts About the Proposed Tracy Biowarfare Agent Research Facility, August 31, 2006
7 Press release, Tri-Valley CAREs, March 7, 2007
8 AP wire copy read on KPFA Evening News, March 8, 2007
9 Ibid.
10 Press release, Tri-Valley CAREs, April 16, 2007, Op. Cit.
11 Quick Facts, August 31, 2006, Op. Cit.
12 Press release, Tri-Valley CAREs, April 16, 2007, Op. Cit.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.

The Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), a premier nuclear weapons research facility, is unique among America’s national labs in that it is in an urban area. It is in Livermore, California, cheek-by-jowl to homes built across the street. Moreover, Livermore itself is part of San Francisco’s East Bay region. Seven million people, including this writer, live within a 50-mile radius of the city. Airplanes heading in and out of San Francisco International, Oakland International, and Minetta International (San Jose) fly over it daily.

Scientists at the lab perform experiments with plutonium, highly-enriched uranium, and tritium (radioactive hydrogen) in an earthquake zone. There are three major seismic faults in the region: the Calaveras, the Hayward, on which thousands of homes and businesses sit — this fault bisects the Cal Berkeley football stadium — and the famous San Andreas Fault, which is west of the San Francisco Bay, but still capable of causing tremendous damage to the East Bay region if it quakes in the “right” place.

LLNL is the rectangular area between S. Vasco Rd. and Greenville Rd (upper right of this image).¹

Closer to home, the Las Positas fault zone is less than 200 feet from the Livermore Lab site boundary. The Greenville fault caused a quake in 1980 that created a 120-meter discontinuous crack in the earth near Livermore Lab’s Hazardous and Radioactive Waste Storage yard. A laser slipped off its supports during the quake, triggering an internal tritium leak². Up until that time, the Greenville fault was not listed as an active fault, which goes to show that a future catastrophe could come from a heretofore unrecognized source.

Likelihood of intense shaking³

Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)⁴, a local organization that has been monitoring the lab’s activities for more than 20 years, says this:

“The Department of Energy has done a very inadequate job of the addressing the earthquake risks. They’ve postulated a ground motion that is less than what earthquake experts believe is possible. So we’re in a situation where if an earthquake cooperates with the Department of Energy’s analysis and doesn’t go outside the boundaries the Department of Energy has looked at, then the results will likely be no catastrophic accident. However, Nature being Nature and doing what she will and not necessarily paying any attention to the Department of Energy’s calculations, if there’s a ground motion that’s greater than or different than what the Department of Energy has calculated, there is the possibility for a very serious accident and a large release of radioactive material.” ⁵

Probability of Big Quake⁶

LLNL’s neighbors are adamantly against the lab’s proposal to build a BSL-3 high-security biotechnology facility on the property. BSL stands for biohazard safety level. There are four biohazard safety levels: 1-4. The number refers to the types of procedures, precautions, and equipment that laboratory personnel must use when working on organisms at the lab. By extension, the number also refers to the types of bioagents that can be present in the lab. BSL-3 is a high-containment level, where scientists work with potentially life-threatening microorganisms such as live anthrax and bubonic plague. BSL-4 facilities harbor microorganisms that cause diseases for which there is no known cure, such as the Ebola and Marburg viruses.⁷ So one can readily see why a community would not be eager to have a BSL-3 or BSL-4 facility in its midst.

In addition to the obvious concerns about accidental or deliberate discharge of dangerous microorganisms into the community, people against the BSL-3 lab at Lawrence Livermore cite additional threats posed to world peace by experimenting with potentially deadly organisms in a facility that also conducts classified nuclear weapons research.

The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention⁸ (BWC), to which the United States is a party, permits biological research that is prophylactic or defensive in nature, e.g., research to develop vaccines and antidotes. The trouble is, to develop these vaccines and antidotes, one must first to discover how the bioagents work. That knowledge opens up the realm of illegal offensive research.

Moreover, research is more likely to be deemed suspicious when it is done under the auspices of a military agency such as the Department of Defense, or an agency with heavy military connections, such as the Department of Energy or the Department of Homeland Security, than when it is done by an agency such as the Department of Health and Human Services or the Environmental Protection Agency. Openness to inspection is a confidence-building measure that supports the BWC. But inspections are not likely to be allowed if the biological research is on the same premises as classified nuclear weapons research. The suspicion such research, and the refusal to permit inspection, creates in other countries could lead to the proliferation of bioweapons, and thus threaten not only US national security but the security of the entire human race.

The thought that the United States could be pursuing illegal bioweapons, in the name of needing to know what the terrorists might do, is not idle speculation. Dr. Robert Gould, M.D., a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility⁹, has expressed concern that the US government wants to genetically modify anthrax. “This is a threat of developing offensive capabilities,” he said, “because you’re modifying an organism to be resistant to antibiotics and therefore increasing its capability to be a weapon.”¹⁰ The lab already works with dead anthrax in its BSL-2 facility.

For the time being, the Department of Energy’s plans for a BSL-3 lab at Lawrence Livermore have been halted. On October 16, 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of environmentalists in a three-year-old lawsuit filed by Tri-Valley CAREs and Nuclear Watch New Mexico. The court held that the Energy Department’s environmental impact study was inadequate because it omitted any study of security risks and terrorist threats to the facility on the basis that such an analysis was not required under the National Environmental Policy Act. The 9th Circuit remanded the environmental review back to the Department of Energy for further analysis on terrorist risks.¹¹

In a press release announcing the decision, Tri-Valley CAREs staff attorney Loulena Miles said, “Now the agency can not merely cry national security and avoid hard questions concerning environmental impacts and terrorist risks.”¹²

But the victory may be only temporary. The decision was marked “Not for Publication” and a footnote states, “This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.¹³ It, therefore, cannot be used as precedent in other lawsuits.

Secondly, in its six-page decision, the Court stated that, “[r]eview of agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. section 706(2), is ‘highly deferential.’ Although Tri-Valley raised some substantial questions about the validity of DOE’s substantive conclusions, this Court may not substitute its judgment for the reviewing agency’s. NEPA is a procedural statute that does not mandate particular results, but simply provides the necessary process to ensure that federal agencies take a hard look at the environmental consequences of their actions.”¹⁴

DOE, undaunted by this temporary setback in Livermore, is pushing its plans to build a BSL-4 lab in the nearby city of Tracy, on the northern edge of the San Joaquin Valley, some of the best farmland on earth.

References
¹ Map Image: Livermore, CA. Google Earth.
² Phone interview with Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs for R.I.S.E. Program: Livermore: More Nuclear Bombs. The final program is available here
³ Image: Likelihood of intense shaking. Source: Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country: Your Handbook for the San Francisco Bay Region / U.S. Geological Survey General Information Product 15, 2005
⁴ Tri-Valley CAREs
⁵ Phone interview with Marylia Kelley
⁶ Image: Probability of Big Quake. Source: Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country: Your Handbook for the San Francisco Bay Region / U.S. Geological Survey General Information Product 15, 2005
⁷ Marylia Kelley & Jay Coghlan, “Mixing bugs and bombs.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2003, p 26.
⁸ The text of the BWC is here
⁹ Physicians for Social Responsibility
¹⁰ Kellia Ramares, “As Bush threatens Iraq with Nukes, U.S. ramps up its own biowarfare research.” Originally published in Online Journal, January, 2003. Now available here
¹¹ Press Release: “Community Groups Hail Victory, Court Grants Demand For Environmental Review Before Bio-Warfare Agent Research Facility Opens At Livermore Lab,” October 16, 2006.
¹² Ibid., p 1.
¹³ Tri-Valley CAREs, et al. v. Department of Energy, et al., p 1. link
¹⁴ Ibid., p 4.

For almost 40 years, beginning in the late 1940s, large quantities of uranium were mined on their land. Many Navajo still suffer related physical ailments. They are none too eager to open up their land to an industry they have been ravaged by, however safe and efficient they are told it will be. Unfortunately, they may have no choice. HRI has been working in conjunction with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to get a license to mine the land since the late 1990s, and it looks like they’re about to make a move.

The Navajo Nation covers a big piece of land, about 27,000 square miles, and stretches over parts of three states: Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. It is estimated to contain one of the largest uranium ore deposits in the world. That’s why, back in 1948, when the demand for uranium was high, the Navajo Nation seemed like a good place to get it. In addition to large deposits, the uranium in Navajo country is found in sandstone, making it ideal for the less invasive in situ method of extraction. Even this method is likely to create problems, however, according to the WISE Uranium Project. Among them: “the risk of spreading of leaching liquid outside of the uranium deposit, involving subsequent groundwater contamination; the unpredictable impact of the leaching liquid on the rock of the deposit; the impossibility of restoring natural groundwater conditions after completion of the leaching operations.” The report goes on to say “in-situ leaching releases considerable amounts of radon, and produces certain amounts of waste slurries and waste water during recovery of the uranium from the liquid.” No wonder the Navajo are worried. The land HRI plans to mine supplies the only source of drinking water for some 15,000 residents, many living below poverty level.

When HRI began their campaign to mine in Indian country they sent a request to the NRC. The NRC responded in March of 1997. Their response refers to an evaluation process that included a review of the environmental impact of the proposed mining project. The content of the review or Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is not included as part of the docket entry, nor is it accessible online. Based on the FEIS, the NRC granted HRI a license to mine uranium, in situ, in McKinley County, New Mexico (aka: Indian country).

Interestingly, the Navajo people requested a complete study of the impact of uranium mining on the same stretch of land that they own. The study was never conducted. The rationale was that since uranium mining was not then taking place, there was no need to conduct such a study. This is despite the fact that “. . . Navajos have suffered from high cancer rates and respiratory problems. One study found that cancer rates among Navajo teenagers living near mine tailings are 17 times the national average. ”

The suffering of the Navajo due to uranium mining was so extreme it prompted Harry Tome, a Dineh activist, to work tirelessly throughout the 1980s to force the U.S. government to provide relief to minors and their families, who suffered as a result of the exposure to radiation. His efforts were long and arduous, largely because there were no extensive studies to document the full effects of the mining industry on the Indian nation. Still, in 1990, with the help of Stewart Udall (former U.S. Secretary of the Interior), the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed. Remediation programs covered in that act have still not been fully implemented. When HRI wanted to start mining again, they got their special study, and pronto. They even got the NRC to approve a mining license, and all without consulting the Navajo Nation Council.

HRI, a subsidiary of Uranium Resources, Inc. (URI) estimates that the area in question, which is located near two Navajo communities, Church Rock and Crownpoint, contains close to 100 million pounds of uranium. One can only imagine the kind of money that’s worth. So, in addition to working with the NRC, the folks at HRI have been actively recruiting Navajo residents to support their mining plan by offering large sums of money.

According to a recent airing of Democracy Now, HRI has coupled offers of big pay-outs with misleading propaganda campaigns designed to convince residents who live on the reservation there are no serious health risks to minors or their families. With no formal studies to prove HRI’s claims of safety suspect, those who stand to make a great deal of money are naturally leaning toward supporting the deal. This has, apparently, created a huge rift between those who fear the ultimate cost of allowing uranium mining and those who seek immediate compensation for the use of their land. Still, despite the contention among the Navajo, the Navajo Nation Council managed to pass a law banning uranium mining. One would think that would be the end of that. It is their country, after all. Or is it?

In January 2006, HRI submitted a request to the NRC suggesting that the land HRI wishes to mine be reclassified as “not Indian country under 18 U.S.C.§ 1151(b)…”. If the NRC grants the request, the land in Church Rock (referenced in the letter as “HRI’s Church Rock”) would be under the jurisdiction of the State of New Mexico, making any laws passed by the Navajo Nation, regarding the use of the land, inapplicable. And once again uranium mining will take place in Indian country.
Check-mate.

In the mid nineteen eighties I found my self visiting a lovely little town in Eastern Washington called Pasco. Part of the “Tri Cities” which includes Richland and Kennewick, the town of Pasco seemed idyllic. Quiet, clean, plenty of parks, inexpensive housing… I liked it.

Well, I liked it except for the 586-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation located on the outskirts of town. Yeah, that’s right — not a nuclear plant — a nuclear RESERVATION.

You see, it seems that after supplying plutonium for America’s war effort in World War Two, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation kept expanding until it had, by the time I arrived, not three, not five, but a full NINE reactors processing nuclear material and as a result had no small waste storage disposal issues.

This is where plutonium comes from.

You would think that this would send people running for the hills or at least to a safer part of the state, such as the base of Mount St. Helens, but the attitude of the town, at least during the time I was there, was mixed.

A large number of people I talked to really liked the plants. After all, it was a company town and the company was cooking, humming, irradiating, all that. Unemployment was low, company benefits were high and people seemed content with making the simple trade. Quality of life, in exchange for length of life.

I’ll give you an example, I’m sitting in the hotel bar and a sexy, attractive woman sits down next to me and puts three packs of Camel non-filters next to the ashtray. I said, ”Wow, those are a lot of cigarettes,” and she replied, “I like to see what I’m going to smoke in a night.”

I asked her if she worried about getting cancer and she looked me in the eye and said, “I work in the plant. What the fuck is the difference?” I bought her a double. And no, before you think that I brought her upstairs, I did the math, and figured that sleeping with her would be like placing my manhood in the microwave.

True story. Except for the part about me doing math. And the part about her being sexy and attractive. But back to the macro.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation represents a major clean up problem. According to the web site of Washington Senator Patty Murray there are 50 million gallons of nuclear waste material sitting in 177 underground tanks all way past their intended life span. And, just because it can, the waste has entered the water table and is moving toward the Columbia River.

Fifty MILLION gallons? That’s right. But it used to be much, much worse.

There were five radionuclides that contributed the most to radiation dose from the river pathway (dose is the amount of radiation absorbed by a person’s body). The five radionuclides were phosphorus-32, zinc-65, arsenic-76, neptunium-239 and sodium-24. The Dose Reconstruction Project estimated that these radionuclides accounted for more than 94 percent of the potential radiation dose from the river pathway. There were many other radioactive materials released into the river as well.

The nuclear fuel consisted of fuel “elements” which were less than two feet long and encased in metal. There were thousands of fuel elements in each reactor. The increase in the reactor power levels put more stress on the fuel elements. Under this stress, the metal covering could split and allow small chunks of the radioactive fuel to be flushed into the river with the cooling water. The largest chunk weighed more than a pound. There were nearly 2,000 fuel element failures during the operation of the eight original plutonium production reactors.

Washington State Department of Health

That’s right, raw chunks of fuel rods discharged into the river, from 1944 through 1971. Twenty-seven years of 200 degree water fresh from the overloaded reactor cores.

The cores were overloaded because Hanford “increased the power levels of all eight reactors to produce more plutonium for the country’s nuclear arsenal. As a result, more radioactivity was discharged into the Columbia,” according to the Hanford Health Information Network. They were essentially running the reactors with the volume cranked up to eleven. Running them at warp nine.

The radiation in the Columbia also reached the Pacific Ocean, contaminating shellfish along the Washington and Oregon coasts. The levels of zinc-65 in the oysters of Willapa Bay on the Washington coast were monitored beginning in 1959. According to a 1959 Hanford document, the levels of zinc-65 in Pacific oysters were more than 300 times higher than in Japanese or Atlantic coast oysters.

Some people have recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s, they preferred swimming near Hanford because the water felt warmer there than further downstream.
Washington State Department of Health

They are working on the problems, of course. In May of 1989 the EPA, The state, and the department of energy entered into a Tri-Party Agreement to clean the area up.

They are currently constructing a plant, due to open in 2007, that will convert the waste into glass for easier storage. Not only do I not know or understand how this works but I can’t possibly begin to fathom what one does with highly radioactive glass – sell it to the bottlers of Jolt Cola? A new kind of solar panel for places that don’t get sun? Happy meals?

Actually, there have been recent cuts in the budget to clean up this mess. Apparently the money is needed to help clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Senators Murray and Cantwell recently issued a joint statement that said among other things,

“For the past five years there has been an unprecedented attack on our nation’s ability to cleanup nuclear waste. Today we know why. The Administration has officially labeled these cleanup efforts as ‘lower-priority federal programs.’

There is no more important priority for the federal government than protecting the health and well-being of all Americans. The cleanup of nuclear waste at Hanford and other sites across the country is a signal about how our nation treats the communities that have sacrificed to protect all of us.

There is nothing fiscally responsible about the Administration’s efforts to rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul attempts at Katrina recovery. If the President were serious about fiscal responsibility he would rethink a short-sighted and dangerous tax cut policy. Denying funding to a national priority like Hanford cleanup, will only lead to increased costs in the long run.” source

It was 11 AM the next day. I was in my hotel room on the fourth floor overlooking the entire area. It was a lovely day and I was shaking off the cobwebs of the night before when I heard the siren. Loud. One of those 40’s air raid ones.

My first instinct is to “Duck and Cover” but then I remember Glasnost and rule it out. Probably only a test. Then the screaming starts. Children screaming at the top of their lungs. Running. Screaming. True.

My blood ran cold. I could not believe that this is how I was going to die. Then it sort of got quieter. I could still hear the kids but now they sounded happy. I went out on the terrace and there, across the street, was an elementary school. It was recess.

Kids.

I lit up a cigarette, picked up the phone and called John Hancock about getting some term life.

Of the 15 states that host nuclear weapons, New Mexico ranks number one by virtue of the many warheads stored at the Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex (KUMSC), a modern $43 million, 300,000-square-foot facility opened in 1992. Special military aircraft land at the Albuquerque International Airport and load and unload nuclear weapons at the “Hot Cargo Pad.” Warheads are taken to the KUMSC and stored in one of 58 storage bays/underground bunkers. The facility has state-of-the-art security.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Extensive micro processor based security system for 490,000 square foot Underground Munitions Storage Facility and 18,000 square foot Squadron Operations Building.
The electronic security system provided an integrated capacity for the automatic access and circulation control of personnel entering the buildings including detection and warning of attempts to penetrate the facility.

Automated access control consisted of card reader/keyboard access, personal identity verifier devices, security cards, turnstiles, x-ray machines, personnel entry entrapment booths, metal detectors, radiation detectors for vehicles and personnel.
Detection sensors include portal status sensors, interior volummetric sensors, ultrasonic sensors, passive infrared sensors and photoelectric sensors.
Ludvik Electric

During the past decade, Kirtland has housed one of the highest concentrations of nuclear warheads in the nation at the depot, according to the Washington, D.C.,-based environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. Estimates for the number of warheads there have varied from 2,000 to nearly 3,000 over the past five years, according to the group.

Robert S. Norris, a nuclear weapons expert with the environmental group, said in an interview that Kirtland is probably holding about 2,000 warheads now. Norris also called Kirtland’s depot “among the more highly secure ones in the United States … or in the world.”

“Nevertheless, I suppose there is always room for improvement,” Norris said.
Source, Global Security
Security Upgrade newsblip

Special tractor-trailers transport warheads across Interstate 40 to and from the Pantex Plant outside of Amarillo, Texas. As the primary custody transfer point from the Energy Department to the Defense Department for warheads going from Pantex to the field, and from Defense to Energy for warheads going from the field to Pantex, Kirtland occupies (and has occupied since the 1940s) a special place in nuclear logistics.

The 898th Munitions Squadron is a selectively manned unit supporting the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense , the Air Force, Army and Navy, and Theater Commanders. 898 MUNS operates the Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance Storage Complex (KUMMSC), the Air Force’s only underground weapons maintenance and storage facility.

The 898th stores, maintains, modifies and ships weapons and components to combat or storage organizations within the Air Force, sister services, and Department of Energy; and provides support to presidential drawdown and dismantlement programs.
Kirtland Air Force Base

If Albuquerque were to secede from the union, it would immediately become our planet’s third largest nuclear power. Certainly this, paired with the location of Sandia National Laboratories in close proximity to the world’s largest nuclear weapons depot near the runways of the Sunport, paints a huge bull’s eye over Albuquerque for anyone who is angry with our country.

An explosion caused by an accident, attack or plane crash at the Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage and Maintenance Complex could disperse the uranium and plutonium contained in the nuclear warheads there. As a result, Albuquerque had the honor of hosting the first federal dirty bomb drill in 2002.
Albuquerque Journal

No emergency plan can adequately prepare for a disaster involving the large amount of uranium and plutonium in the 2,510 nuclear warheads. The city’s current draft of the Albuquerque Emergency Operations Plan does a very poor job of this. The main method listed of rapidly alerting the public is the Emergency Broadcast System.
Albuquerque Journal

You can also view and download full size images for this story and slideshow.

Primary source for the number of warheads is this report from the Brookings Institution.

TEXAS ranks 10th in number of nuclear warheads deployed, a change from 5th place (and 1,365 warheads) in 1992 and 6th place in 1985 (630 warheads). However, nuclear weapons are stored only at the Pantex Plant of the Department of Energy outside of Amarillo on a temporary basis while they await dismantlement. Though the composition is constantly in flux depending upon which warheads are scheduled, the current pool includes some 150 W69 SRAM warheads and 200 W79 8-inch artillery shells.

More From Taking Stock: Worldwide Nuclear Deployments 1998:

In October 1950 the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined there was need for a second facility in addition to Burlington, and Pantex was chosen in 1951. Originally built by the Army Ordnance Corps in 1942, Pantex was used during World War II to load conventional munitions (bombs and artillery shells) with TNT. Throughout late 1950 and 1951 the plant was rehabilitated and began full operation (with assembly of Mark VI nuclear bombs) in May 1952. The operating contractor, the Proctor & Gamble Company, ran it for the U.S. Army Ordnance Command beginning in 1953. In 1956 Mason & Hanger took over and has run it ever since. With some exceptions Pantex evolved in the early years to become the assembly facility for the Livermore Laboratory, and Burlington assembled Los Alamos designed warheads.

By November 1951, with the Cold War heating up, the AEC estimated that five plants would be needed to match the future numbers of warheads that were planned to be built. A third facility was planned at Spoon River, Illinois. But by 1953 it was decided that two plants would suffice to meet production goals and plans for the other three were canceled. The Burlington Plant operated until 1975 when its functions were transferred to Pantex.

The disassembly/modification work continued at Medina until 1965, when all functions were transferred to Pantex. At the current 1,300 warhead per year retirement rate, it is estimated that some 300 to 400 weapons are present at Pantex at any one time. Warheads in the pipeline to be dismantled are also stored at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. These include 200 W79s, 1,100 W69 SRAM warheads, and 450 W56 Minuteman II warheads. The last W48 155mm (6-inch) artillery warheads, W70 Lance warheads, W68 Poseidon warheads, and B57 nuclear depth and strike bombs have been completely retired.

Over the ten year period from October 1986 through September 1996, Pantex disassembled 12,514 warheads. It has more than enough capacity to disassemble the entire stockpile at current workload levels and will complete its current work orders in the year 2000. As of the end of 1997 there are approximately 10,750 “pits” (nuclear cores of warheads that have been dismantled) in storage at Pantex.

Web-posted Thursday, November 10, 2005
House approves measure that includes Pantex funding
Amarillo Globe-News

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2006, a measure that includes $523.3 million in Pantex Plant funding. The House approved the measure by a vote of 399-17. The Senate has yet to pass the bill, but is expected to take it up before Thanksgiving.

Through the appropriations process, U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Amarillo, worked to secure approximately $76 million in additional funding for Pantex above President’s Bush’s budget request, according to Thornberry’s office. The bill includes $51 million more than the president’s request for Pantex’s Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities programs, infrastructure and facilities programs that support Pantex operations, bringing the total in that budget category to $181. 2 million.

Thornberry’s office said House members approved $126.2 million in funding for Pantex’s safeguards and securities programs, $25 million more than the president’s budget request.

“The missions performed at Pantex are vital to our national security. I am thankful for the support Pantex receives through this bill,” Thornberry said in a statement.

According to the International Action Center article Iraqi cities ‘hot with depleted uranium’ reporters have measured radiation levels that are between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than would normally be expected in parts of Iraq.


The Dutch are concerned about this, as they plan to send troops to Iraq. They are slated to be stationed in the small town of Al-Samawah, where the U.S. insists it has not used D.U. However, according to the above referenced study, a Dutch journalist was able to confirm that when the U.S. Army fought Iraqi forces there, D.U. ammunition was “widely used.”

According to the American Gulf War Veterans Association, half of the soldiers who have returned to the U.S. since serving in the Gulf War have reported “serious illnesses.” About 30% of those suffer from chronic illness–a surprising number since the military screened soldiers for chronic conditions like asthma, cancer, diabetes, birth defects and heart conditions, before they were inducted. This unexplained incidence of chronic illness, therefore, has many believing it is related to exposure to D.U. radiation.

Under pressure to assess the dangers D.U. radiation poses to American solders, the Department of Defense hired the Rand Corporation to study the issue several years ago. The DoD briefing on the study was held on April 15, 1999. Interestingly, the Rand Corporation did not use the commission to gather data that would allow them to study health problems in soldiers and correlate them to data on actual D.U. usage. They focused, instead, on conducting a review of the literature.

Simply put, they compiled studies that had already been conducted by others. So the Rand Corporation’s final work is largely a science lesson on what D.U. is, and how it works. It does not delve into specifics regarding use of D.U. or numbers of soldiers/civilians who’ve been exposed to it, or the consequences of such exposure. In other words, it’s relatively useless for the purpose for which it was ostensibly designed.

What’s more, the study paid very little attention to the fact that D.U. can be internalized in more ways than one. In the press briefing that covered the literature review, Dr. Bernard D. Rostker said that while it is possible to ingest or inhale D.U., they don’t have any statistics on it. And in a surprisingly cavalier follow-up, added “Some people think that’s an issue.”

When asked for the actual number of soldiers believed to have been exposed to D.U. via friendly-fire instances (only U.S. soldiers were using shell casings made with D.U. during the Gulf War) or during D.U. clean-up, Dr. Rostker couldn’t seem to find the information in his report. When the reporter covering the briefing moved on to ask about airborne uranium left-over from battles in which D.U. shell casings were used, military spokesperson Col. Daxon was quick to point out that the tests showed the radioactive dust didn’t seem to travel more than about 50 yards, and “eventually settles.”

Perhaps that’s how the U.S. Military is now justifying its use in densely populated urban areas; in that case, even a 50 yard radius around a battle site would be a dangerous area to cover with uranium dust, wouldn’t it?

And doesn’t the dust just come back up again for somebody else to breath in when a car drives by or it’s particularly windy? In fact, even if the dust stays put, in water or in soil, isn’t that considered contamination? Wouldn’t ingestion vs. inhalation then be a problem? It’s not like the stuff just disappears. D.U. has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Yet, for some unknown reason, nobody during the briefing bothered to address these issues.

While statistics citing “mysterious” illnesses and “Gulf War Syndrome” abound, the military’s decision to separate those from any connection to D.U. exposure meant that only a small group of soldiers, 33 in all, who have actual D.U. shell casing fragments in their bodies, were included as part of the Rand study.

The military argued at the time that the soldiers in that group would, naturally, have a greater chance of suffering the effects of D.U. radiation because they had internal exposure to it; whereas, those who do not have actual shell fragments made from D. U. in their bodies (i.e., soldiers, Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops currently suffering from “mysterious” illnesses/and or Gulf War Syndrome), would be much less likely to be ill as a result of D. U. exposure. In other words, both the military and the Rand Corporation decided that D.U. radiation left over from U.S. military action is harmless. They didn’t research it; they assumed it.

Now, six years after the Rand Corporation published their literature review, veterans are even more concerned about the long-term health effects of D.U.; yet no more comprehensive work has followed that original study. More disturbing, the military has deliberately avoided the task of compiling the data that might answer questions concerning the relationship between the two. Instead, the military has continued to cite the Rand study as definitive evidence of the failure to connect D.U. exposure to the chronic illnesses suffered by veterans of both Gulf Wars.

But according to the International Action Center, Iraq’s National Ministry of Health put together a couple of international coalitions to do what the U.S. military would not, and their findings were quite disturbing. They showed “a six-fold increase in breast cancer, a five-fold increase in lung cancer and a 16-fold increase in ovarian cancer among those exposed to D.U.” Unfortunately, many are unaware of this because U.S. sanctions prevented the Ministry from publishing its findings in much of the world.

Meanwhile, Iraqis are focused on rebuilding their war-torn country: repairing power plants, securing clean water, fighting for jobs, and creating a Constitution that they hope will stave off civil war. Concerned about their immediate physical safety, they are totally unaware of the fact that their biggest battle–the battle for their long-term health–is still ahead.