For example, a public comment period for open burning and open detonation of hazardous waste ended the day after Easter. Scheduling a comment period during Passover and Easter is typical for DOE. Comments are currently due on Monday, March 26 th, the day after Holy Week begins. The RLUOB was limited to 8.4 grams because the majority of plutonium work was planned for the Nuclear Facility, which was canceled in 2012 by the Obama Administration when project costs exploded from $600 million to $6.5 billion.ĭespite the on-going serious concerns about plutonium operations at LANL, DOE is moving forward with the release of a draft environmental assessment for a 30-day public review and comment period. That document is the 2003 environmental impact statement, which restricted the amount of plutonium to 8.4 grams.įurther, the RLUOB was not designed, nor equipped, to handle 38.6 grams of plutonium equivalent, let alone 400 grams. ĬCNS argues that any proposal to increase the amount of plutonium in the RLUOB must begin with the last NEPA document released for public review and comment. Nevertheless, DOE then gave itself permission to quadruple the amount from 8.4 grams to 38.6 grams without any opportunity for public review and comment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The 2003 CMRR environmental impact statement restricted the amount of plutonium-equivalent allowed in the RULOB to 8.4 grams.
The RLUOB is the only facility built under the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project. DOE wants to increase the amount of plutonium used in its Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building (RLUOB) from 38.6 grams of plutonium-239 equivalent to 400 grams. After the release of the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration released its own document to support a nearly 50-fold increase in plutonium use at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).