Interview Transcript
Los Alamos Lab Plans Major Nuclear Expansion Despite Safety Concerns
The National Nuclear Security Administration has just released a final site-wide environmental impact statement, or an SWIES, for Los Alamos National Labs, and the Union of Concerned Scientists has some thoughts. Before we get into those thoughts, though, can you help us understand what that statement does and what kind of decisions it locks in for an agency?
Dr. Dylan Spaulding: Sure, so a SWEIS or site-wide environmental impact statement is an analysis that's required under the National Environmental Policy Act that basically is the NNSA's way of analyzing the impacts of the work that they're planning on doing over the next roughly eight years or so, eight to ten years. And so this is kind of a forecast of anticipated building projects, expansion, changes in use of things like water and electricity. And it looks at how the programs that they think they're about to undertake or are presently undertaking are going to continue to impact operations and surroundings over that coming time period.
This final document lays out several alternatives, but it does ultimately choose a preferred path forward. Based on your review, what factors would you say carried the most weight in how NNSA arrived at their decision?
Dr. Dylan Spaulding: You're correct in that they consider three alternatives. One is called a no-action alternative, which would basically mean they carry on with status quo activities. Although critics have pointed out that because it's been so long since Los Alamos has conducted an analysis like this, status quo is already well beyond what was analyzed under the scope of previous such analyzes. So even the no-actual alternative represents significant change from what was previously the case. They've ended up settling on sort of the most expansive option, which is called an expanded operations alternative. And that includes kind of the widest slate of expansion and building. And much of that is to support what's called plutonium pit production at the lab, which is the manufacture of new cores or triggers for nuclear weapons, which is something Los Alamos National Laboratory has not previously been responsible for doing.
You mentioned that they chose the most expansive option. Does that imply that that is definitely what they're planning to build, or is that a way of keeping options open?
Dr. Dylan Spaulding: It's a way of keeping options open, although much of what's in the expanded operations alternative is already somewhat locked in by decisions made even prior to this analysis as a result of LANL's charge to produce plutonium pits. It was very unlikely they would go back to a lesser option because that would essentially imply reduced scope for that program, which is - and that's a program that the Union of Concerned Scientists has actively critiqued and opposes - but it doesn't necessarily mean that they will carry out all the work outlined under the expanded operations alternative, but it gives them essentially license to do so under this analysis.
And that plan is built on certain assumptions about future operations. You mentioned the plutonium pit production. Where do you see the biggest assumptions in this plan that could matter if conditions change over time?
Dr. Dylan Spaulding: Well, the plutonium pit production program is really charging forward faster than we at UCS believe is advisable. So, LANL was originally charged, Los Alamos was originally charged with making 30 plutonium pits per year, and that's something they've been struggling to do up to now. A February 11th memo that came out just before this site-wide environmental impact statement actually calls for doubling that capacity to 60. And that's something important to call out in relation to this environmental analysis is that this doesn't capture that call for doubling production. So it may already be outdated in that sense. It seems that even the expanded operations alternative may be sort of a lower limit based on what NNSA is already saying about projected future operations. And we find that extremely troubling because going fast with a program like this is extremely risky. It poses risks to workers, it poses risks to surrounding communities. It increases the amount of waste which LANL has struggled to deal with in the past. And it also overshadows efforts to clean up legacy waste. LANL has a good deal of existing radioactive waste on site that has been kind of put on the back burner in order to facilitate production. And that's something that people in New Mexico and the New Mexico Environment Department and others, including us at Union of Concerned Scientists are extremely concerned about.
If the plan moves forward as it's currently written, what does it mean operationally for Los Alamos, but also for the communities that surround it?
Dr. Dylan Spaulding: Well, Los Alamos is already seeing huge changes. This represents the biggest expansion in their activities really in the lab's history since the Manhattan Project. They've hired thousands of new employees. The scope of new building projects to support pit production is really unprecedented in the labs history. Los Alamo has traditionally been a research and development lab, not a production site for weapons components. And we're seeing that shift now. We're seeing cuts in the budget for fundamental science and other programs, things that looked at renewable energy and things like that are going away in favor of production. And so the lab is really kind of seeing a cultural shift in the way it's being asked to operate to accommodate this program. That's squeezing nearby communities. You can imagine Los Alamos is effectively housing saturated because of its geography. So with thousands of new employees, you have to put them somewhere. There's increased traffic. Building projects are causing, you know, also increased traffic, noise, other impacts on surrounding communities. And there are concerns about what the future impacts will be, right, from these facilities if there are accidents or other things that could lead to community exposure. And that's where, again, I think the risks of going fast and trying to accelerate this program are really huge.
