Fee Award Assessments Show Nuclear Weapons Complex in Disarray; Untested Changes to Reliable Stockpile Planned and Encouraged; NNSA Head Increased Profits For Contractors Despite Poor Performance; Greater Federal Oversight of Taxpayers’ Money Needed

3/07/2013
By Jay Coghlan
Nuclear Watch New Mexico

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has recently released Fiscal Year 2012 Performance Evaluation Reports on its contractors at its eight nuclear weapons sites, following Nuclear Watch New Mexico’s successful lawsuit for FY 2011 Reports. These assessments are the scorecards for Performance Evaluation Plans negotiated between the government and its nuclear weapons contractors, which awards the contractors hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. Public access to these reports is of increasing importance as federal oversight is being continuously diminished. The trend of soaring contractor profits paired with decreasing accountability should be reversed, especially given sequester budget cuts that will further handicap federal oversight.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico has released an analysis and selected excerpts of the FY 2012 NNSA Performance Evaluation Reports. In summary:

For Immediate Release

Jan. 14, 2013

Tom Clements

Violation of NRC’s “QualityAssurance” Regulations Necessitate Re-inspection and

Possible Abandonment of Reactor Vessel

--- Exclusive ANA Photos Linked Below- Credit to ANA Must be Given if Used ---

Columbia, SC – The broken railroad car assumed to be carrying the massive AP1000 reactor pressure vessel destined for the construction site at Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle in Georgia has been spotted unguarded near the dock in the port of Savannah.

The purpose-built, articulated“Schnabel” rail car, apparently under control of reactor vendor Westinghouse,sits parked outside on a rail line in a port area which is viewable from a public sidewalk.  The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is covered by a large blue tarp and is not directly visible.  Beyond an occasional drive-by of vehicles, no security of any kind nor were any repair or inspection activities observed.  No cranes capable of lifting the 300-ton vessel were visible.

“Though perhaps too heavy to steal or roll out of the port unnoticed, the reactor vessel and rail car appear highly vulnerable to malicious acts of damage, subtle acts of sabotage and humid,salt air-induced corrosion, “according to Tom Clements of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), who observed the rail car parked in the port on January 13.

From left to right: Kathy Crandall-Robinson (Women's Action for New Directions), Jonathan Epstein (Senate Armed Services Committee), and Katherine Fuchs (Alliance for Nuclear Accountability)

Nov. 8, 2012

Recently, a delegation of Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) staff and members met with Senate Armed Services Committee Majority Council to discuss our opposition to the proposed Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) facility. Our delegation represented 67 organizations opposed to building the new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Site in Tennessee. These organizations include national groups such as Physicians for Social Responsibility and Women’s Action for New Directions, as well as local groups like the Archdiocese of Detroit.

The 67 organizations all signed onto a letter circulated by ANA requesting that Senator Levin and his colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee not accelerate funding for the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) project. The UPF exemplifies many of the problems endemic to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) projects, and has recently received media attention for contractors’ failure to design the building large enough to fit all necessary equipment inside.