Steve Quayle News Alerts

Feb. 27, 2004
Knoxville, Tenn.

Bush Administration strategy to counter weapons of mass destruction threat in all it's dimensions, including their use and further proliferation.

(CBS/AP) The restart of bomb-grade uranium processing at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge is five years overdue and about $300 million over budget, according to an internal audit.

Since Y-12 is the only facility in the United States capable of recovering and purifying highly enriched uranium for warheads, the delay may have greater significance than the cost.

"As a result, the enriched uranium operations necessary for national security are not available to meet future mission needs," said the Energy Department's inspector general's office. The audit was released Thursday.

Y-12 also is the country's primary storehouse for weapons-grade uranium. The delay in processing is causing a buildup of salvageable material that is placing enormous pressure on its storage facilities, the inspector general added.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department that oversees the nuclear weapons program, blamed the delays on Y-12's previous managing contractor.

A new contractor has gotten the program back on track, said Michael Kane, the NNSA's associate administrator for management and administration. BWXT, a partnership of BWX Technologies and Bechtel National, assumed Y-12's management contract in 2000.

Y-12's uranium processing operation was shuttered in 1994 after an accidental release of hydrogen fluoride raised safety concerns. The original estimate was to restart the program by December 1998 at a cost of $119 million.

Some processes within the program have been restored, but the inspector general's report said full operation may be at least three years away.

According to the audit, while some processes are fully up and running, key capabilities remain lacking: the salvaging of material that contains uranium, the "wet chemistry" that recovers uranium from that material, and the "oxide conversion" that processes the extracted uranium into a form that can be reduced into weapons material.

The U.S. needs new uranium to maintain its existing nuclear warheads.

The troubles at Y-12 are only the latest problems for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

A recent investigation by the government's General Accounting Office found that the Department of Energy may not be up to the task of securing America's nine nuclear weapons factories and research labs from terrorist attack.

In January, the Energy Department conducted a widespread review of security at the nuclear weapons laboratories after reports of hundreds of missing keys, some of which could allow access to sensitive areas.

The Energy Department announced last year it would take competitive bids for the contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory for the first time in the nuclear weapons lab's history, after high-profile management breakdowns shook confidence in current management.

The review of the contract was prompted after reports of financial abuse by several employees, equipment that was missing or unaccounted for, and the firing of two lab investigators who raised concerns about porous management.

Two lab employees used lab money to buy hunting equipment, sunglasses, television sets, gas barbecues and other merchandise apparently unrelated to their jobs. Another used a lab charge card to try to purchase a customized Ford Mustang.

The recent allegations come in the wake of the 1999 investigation into Lee, a Taiwanese-born scientist who was imprisoned for nine months while under investigation. He was never charged with spying.

The next year, two computer hard drives with secret nuclear-related material disappeared, only to turn up later behind a copy machine.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/27/national/main602646.shtml