LANL Resumes Some Machining Activity at Plutonium Facility

Some operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Plutonium Facility have resumed following approval from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Field Office last month, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) site representative report released last week. “Nuclear operations associated with the T Base II machining activity” were restarted at the facility, according to the report dated July 24, after criticality safety issues led to the shutdown of some facility operations in 2013. Personnel at the facility that houses LANL’s plutonium pit manufacturing operations "intend on machining a plutonium part before the end of the fiscal year," the report says, noting that "additional machining operations" will depend upon "successful restart of predecessor and downstream activities."