Water leaked into a plutonium pit-storage area at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, after an August thunderstorm, the Department of Energy disclosed this month.
On Aug. 13 and 14, thunderstorms dumped about 2 inches of rain on the north Texas city, according to data compiled by the National Weather Service. During the storm, “rain water entered and covered the floor in some facilities, including a Zone 12 South MAA [Material Access Area] facility,” the Department of Energy said in an Oct. 6 report.
Zone 12 hosts bays for nuclear-weapon assembly and disassembly, including storage space for plutonium pits: the fissile cores of nuclear weapons.
The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) oversees the Pantex Plant, which is operated by contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security: a partnership of Bechtel National, Leidos, Orbital ATK, and SOC. The NNSA assembles and disassembles substantially all U.S. nuclear weapons at Pantex.
“CNS reported the issue to DOE immediately, and remained in contact with DOE during actions to pause operations, evaluate facilities, and then return to safe operations,” a company spokesperson said by email Friday.
Pantex was soaked more thoroughly than the rest of the area, the spokesperson said. The August storm hit with straight-line winds and dropped average of 4.5 inches of rainfall on the weapons plant, which overwhelmed existing drainage systems in places.
As for a fix, “It’s not a matter of simply patching a leak,” the spokesperson said. But “we have a plan to improve the drainage capacity and avoid similar problems in the future.”
Consolidated Nuclear Security discovered the leak Aug. 14, after the storms abated, and mopped it up. However, the water intrusion potentially made the weapons plant less safe, at least for a little while.
The NNSA said the leak into Pantex brought “dirt and other matter” that “potentially” decreased the floor’s dissipation properties. The floors in this area must be able to conduct electricity swiftly to the ground, and after the floodwater intrusion, “it was found that a few points [of the floor] had higher than acceptable resistance.”
In the report, the agency said prior leaks “in other areas” of the weapons facility did not have the same effect on the floor.
“This is the first time the floor has failed a re-test after a water intrusion event,” according to the report.
