National Nuclear Security Administration head Frank Klotz has disputed in a new statement a recent investigative report on safety issues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility (PF-4).
The Center for Public Integrity in a June 18 article wrote about the 2013 shutdown of operations at the site’s PF-4 due to criticality safety program issues. The article delved into LANL’s “persistent shortcomings in plutonium safety” and said that the hiatus led Los Alamos “to forego 29 planned tests of the safety and reliability of plutonium cores in warheads now deployed atop U.S. submarine-launched and land-based missiles and in bombs carried by aircraft.” It also noted PF-4 has not made new plutonium pits for the nuclear arsenal.
Klotz said in a Monday statement in response to CPI’s investigation that NNSA held LANL accountable for nuclear criticality issues, withholding over $82 million in fee payments between 2013 and 2016. He said that LANL has since 2013 made progress in plutonium facility safety: “LANL has increased criticality safety staffing and demonstrated improvements in its performance of operational tasks.”
Klotz also noted PF-4 has resumed producing developmental plutonium pits and will fabricate war reserve pits to be used in future life extension programs. Moreover, Klotz said, “There has not been a nuclear criticality accident at a Department of Energy nuclear facility in nearly 40 years.”