The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week it plans to conduct a new, broad environmental review of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Livermore’s last such review, officially known as a site-wide environmental impact statement, was in 2005. The new review will cover operations for the next 15 years. In that time, Livermore will oversee production of a refurbished W80 air-launched cruise-missile warhead and a newly minted W87-1 intercontinental ballistic warhead. The latter will essentially be a copy of an existing warhead, but with a new plutonium core.
Members of the public may submit comments on the scope of the planned site-wide environmental impact statement until Sept. 21, the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency stated in a Federal Register notice published Wednesday.
Among other things, Livermore performs high-explosive tests at its Area 300 annex. The facility also has some plutonium-handling capabilities in its on-campus superblock, though the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will handle plutonium-production and analysis, going forward.
Throughout much of its 20-year history, the NNSA has relied on the environmental studies mandated in the National Environmental Protection Act to document the steps the agency has taken to ensure it can continue maintenance and refurbishment of U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons production infrastructure.
