Department of Energy

When the Energy Department (DOE) ceased nuclear weapons production in the late 1980s, much of its plutonium was either not in a suitable form or not packaged for long-term storage. Moreover, since the late 1980s, the United States has retired or dismantled many nuclear weapons, creating the need to store thousands of plutonium nuclear weapons components known as "pits." DOE now holds about 10,000 of these pits at its Pantex Plant, near Amarillo, Texas, and the number continues to rise as more nuclear weapons are retired and dismantled. Although DOE has made some progress in stabilizing its plutonium, the agency is unlikely to meet its May 2002 target date to have its plutonium that is not in pits stabilized, packaged, and stored. The DOE sites with the majority of this plutonium have experienced many delays and anticipate more in meeting their implementation plan milestones. In addition to delays in stabilizing and packaging its plutonium that is not in pits, DOE is now storing about 10,000 pits in containers that both the agency and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board believe are not suitable for extended storage, thus risking worker exposure to plutonium.

GAO noted that: (1) although DOE has made some progress in stabilizing its plutonium, it is unlikely to meet its May 2002 target date to have its plutonium that is not in its pits stabilized, packaged, and stored; (2) DOE sites with the majority of this plutonium have experienced many delays and anticipate more in meeting their implementation plan milestones; (3) various problems contribute to these delays, including: (a) changes from the technologies originally chosen to stabilize plutonium residues at Rocky Flats to meet a security requirement; (b) a suspension of plutonium stabilization operations because of safety infractions at Hanford; (c) competing priorities for funding, staff, and equipment at Los Alamos; and (d) delays in obtaining a system for stabilizing and packaging plutonium at three sites; (4) given the inherent dangers of plutonium, such delays result in continuing the existing level of risk to workers' health and safety by delaying the risk reduction that is achieved by stabilization and packaging activities; (5) moreover, because DOE has not yet finalized the criteria the plutonium must meet to be acceptable for the disposition technologies, it is unclear if current activities to stabilize, package, and store the plutonium will be compatible with the means of converting it for disposal; (6) in addition to its delays in stabilizing and packaging its plutonium that is not in pits, DOE is currently storing approximately 10,000 pits in containers that both DOE and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board believe are not suitable for extended storage, thus risking workers' exposure to plutonium; (7) DOE is preparing a plan, which it intends to issue in April 1998, to develop new containers and repackage the remaining 95 percent of the pits; (8) without conducting an analysis of the costs or benefits of the laboratories' recommendation for increased monitoring, DOE decided not to change its existing monitoring program, which formally examines about 30 pits per year; and (9) DOE hopes that it can repackage the pits before enhanced monitoring is necessary.

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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