Y-12 Protesters to be Resentenced on Sept. 15
Resentencing for the three Plowshares protesters who turned the nuclear security world upside down with their July 28, 2012, break-in at the Y-12 National Security Complex is set for Sept. 15.
Sister Megan Rice, a Catholic nun who was 82 at the time of the protest action, and her activist cohorts, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, were freed from prison in mid-May after the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their conviction on sabotages charges.
They will be resentenced on other felony charges, such as damaging government property, but are not expected to return to custody because they have already spent more time in prison than the recommended sentence on the other charges.
Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans Law School and a member of the Plowshares defense team, confirmed that the resentencing is scheduled for Sept. 15 before U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar. However, Quigley said it’s not clear at this point whether there will be a hearing in federal court in Knoxville, where their trial was held, or whether the legal wrap-up will be handled by telephone conference.
Rice, Walli, and Boertje-Obed have said they plan to come to the Oak Ridge area for upcoming events tied to the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Security at Y-12 is already elevated, most recently because of the shooting deaths of military personnel in Chattanooga about 100 miles from Oak Ridge, but it’s expected to be particularly tight during the annual Hiroshima protest period.
Some of the peace and disarmament activities are expected to take place near Y-12, including a “Names and Remembrance” ceremony around dawn on Aug. 6.
The Oak Ridge plant enriched the uranium that was used in the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Y-12 continues to play a leading role in the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
The Y-12 National Security Complex has confirmed some progress in a uranium fuels agreement reached at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.
Y-12 acknowledged recently shipping at least one container of uranium-molybdenum powder alloy to Argonne National Laboratory, where it will undergo a “coating process” and then be shipped later this year to France for fabrication into fuel and irradiated and tested for potential use in research reactors.
Ultimately the goal is to develop a substitute fuel for some of Europe’s high-performance research reactors over the next decade, thus minimizing or ending their use of weapon-grade uranium.
Belgium, France, South Korea, and the United States are reportedly collaborating on development of new high-density fuels that use low-enriched uranium—less than 20 percent U-235—for fuel instead of the HEU that could be converted to use in nuclear weapons.
The project is reportedly in its early stages but progressing.
The goal is to have the new fuel qualified for use by 2025, with plans to change the fuel presently used at the BR2 reactor in Belgium and the RHF research reactor in France.
Materials Work at Y-12
Y-12’s work was referenced in a May 15 report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which noted that workers at the Oak Ridge plant were preparing to repackage quantities of uranium-molybdenum alloy and transfer the powder from storage containers to shipping containers.
Y-12 has been designated as the U.S. Center of Excellence for uranium, and the facility is involved in the international project because of its ability to store and handle uranium in many forms.
As part of the agreement reached several years ago, Y-12 provided an unspecified quantity of low-enriched uranium metal to the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in spring 2013. KAERI alloyed the uranium with about 7 percent molybdenum and transferred the material back to Y-12 in February 2014 for safe and secure storage.
All told, Y-12 received 33 cans of the molybdenum-uranium powder, which is being stored at Building 9720-5, a facility that once housed the site’s inventory of bomb-grade uranium (before construction of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility).
So far, three of those cans have been repackaged and prepared for shipment, according to Y-12’s contractor, and only one has actually been sent off-site.
“As requested, Y-12 will repack and ship the powders to different locations for R&D or full-scale fabrication,” Y-12 spokeswoman Ellen Boatner said in response to questions.
Changing containers is apparently a delicate process. The staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said the process includes a step to “inert the drum” with argon gas “to reduce the likelihood for an energetic oxidation” of the material. The report said that activity takes place without opening the drum.
Asked specifically about Y-12’s role, Boatner said, “All parties agreed the expertise of Y-12 regarding storing, handling, packaging, and shipping of uranium materials made the site the logical choice.”
She said the initial “recontainerization” project at Y-12 went well “thanks to teamwork among the subject matter expert, management and the readiness team, as well as training that consisted of familiarization briefings, hands-on practice evolutions and continuous feedback through pre-job briefs and post-job briefs.”
Y-12 and Pantex to Share Nuclear Criticality Safety Personnel and Expertise
One of the sharing arrangements tied to the newly combined management contract of the Y-12 and Pantex nuclear weapons plants will be personnel and expertise associated with nuclear criticality safety, according to information provided by the management contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security.
“With the combination of the sites under one contract, the total staff are now available to either site, should the need arise,” CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner said in responding to questions about the Department of Energy’s annual report on nuclear criticality safety.
Based on that report, both Y-12 – which houses the nation’s principal supply of bomb-grade uranium — and Pantex, the warhead assembly/disassembly center, “meet expectations” for the overall performance in preventing unplanned and uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions and the awful consequences.
But there are differences in the reports of the two weapons plants in the 76-page report that addresses issues and improvements made at DOE sites during Fiscal Year 2014.
For instance, the report notes that Y-12 had 56 reported infractions on criticality issues, while Pantex, its sister plant, had none. “There have been no known infractions in 22 years at Pantex,” the report stated.
Asked about the big difference in infractions, Boatner said, “Operations at Y-12 and Pantex are fundamentally different. The Y-12 site has many uranium processing operations that range from chemical operations to metal operations, where the form of uranium is changed. It is these processes that could pose a risk of a criticality accident. At Pantex, the fissionable material is fixed in a form that ensures subcriticality, so the risk of a criticality accident is not prevalent.”
The programmatic needs at the two plants are decidedly different. Y-12 has dozens of criticality safety engineers, and Pantex has only two. As noted earlier, the use of personnel could be shifted depending on needs.
The report noted that FY 2014 was “unique” in that the managing operators for the two sites changed, combining under one company (Consolidated Nuclear Security). Therefore, two different rating systems were used, although the NPO oversight remained the same.
Boatner emphasized that safety is important at both sites.
“In the area of nuclear criticality safety, every operation with fissionable material is methodically evaluated to establish multiple, defense-in-depth controls that ensure safety,” she said via email. “These controls project against every credible abnormal condition ranging from a procedural error to equipment malfunctions. Y-12 identifies and tracks even the most monitor condition, which enables CNS to take actions that continuously improve work processes and safety.”
Most of the infractions at Y-12 were “minor non-compliances,” Boatner said, and do not pose a threat of a criticality accident.
One of the issues at Y-12 was the staffing to deal with criticality safety. A chart showed that Y-12 staff had 26 FTEs (full-time equivalents) and noted that Y-12 had a shortage of about 12 FTEs “relative to identified work scope” in Fiscal Year 2015. It was reported that Y-12 was actively hiring 10 criticality safety engineers and that three had already been hired. “General improvements were noted from FY 2013,” the report stated.
There also are a reported 25 FTEs associated with criticality safety for the Uranium Processing Facility, which is under development, and that includes 5 from the Y-12 prime contractor, and 24 subcontractors, meeting programmatic requirements.
The DOE report noted that NNSA Production Office/Y-12 was addressing staffing issues and has continued efforts to improve other areas, such as container labeling and “the process evaluations for criticality safety.”
Y-12 Maintenance Weekend Pays Early Dividends
The managing contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant said it is already seeing dividends from a working weekend a couple months ago that was planned well in advance to tackle loads of preventive maintenance in areas of the facility that needed it most.
According to Consolidated Nuclear Security, about 88 skilled workers were involved in the special weekend – April 30 to May 3 — when most of the workforce was off-duty. (Many plant employees typically work 10 hours a day, four days a week, and are off weekends.)
CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner said the weekend work teams completed more than 100 projects related to power, steam, and compressed air systems at the Tennessee facility. There was heavy-duty work on transformers, as well as needed-to-be-done tasks such as changing hundreds of filters around the plant.
Some of the early gains have been seen in the changes made on compressed air systems, Boatner said.
“Since repairing leaks and disconnecting air to unused buildings, compressed air usage dropped by 1,260 standard cubic feet per minute, which translates into an estimated reduction of $90,673 in annual electricity costs, not to mention reduced wear and tear on the compressors,” she said.