Nuclear Health and Safety

DOE Has Not Demonstrated That Restarting PUREX Is a Sound Decision Gao ID: RCED-90-207 June 29, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the shutdown and planned restart of the Plutonium-Uranium Extraction plant (PUREX) at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site in Washington.

GAO found that DOE has not: (1) demonstrated that restarting PUREX would be a sound decision; (2) demonstrated that a need exists for weapons-grade plutonium from PUREX; (3) determined the need for a supplemental environmental impact statement for PUREX; (4) required that all identified deficiencies in the final safety analysis report be corrected before the planned restart date; and (5) adequately addressed PUREX staff turnover and training problems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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