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| | | published Tuesday, February 19, 2008 | 1127 Views | |  |
Report details Pantex costs
Ecological price tag in numbers previously unreleased
By Jim McBride, the Amarillo Globe
jim.mcbride@amarillo.com
Publication Date: 02/16/08
http://www.amarillo.com/cgi-bin/printme.pl
Estimated future environmental liability costs for the Pantex Plant top $400 million, according to government figures obtained by a New Mexico environmental group, but a Pantex official said the estimates are a few years old and that such costs are expected to drop over time.
About three years ago, Nuclear Watch New Mexico filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the fiscal year 2006 Pantex "10-Year Comprehensive Site Plan," and sued in March 2007 after the National Nuclear Security Administration failed to respond. Nuclear Watch later received a government-censored plan, which the organization challenged in court.
After a recent court hearing, the NNSA released 104 previously redacted pages from the document.
Some of the cost estimates include:
- $210 million for "Long-Term Stewardship," including site "surveillance, maintenance, monitoring and records management."
- $36 million for demolition and decontamination of old plant facilities.
- $20 million to dispose of contaminated soils, sediments, surface water and groundwater.
- $130 million to dispose of "excess nuclear and nonnuclear materials" such as components, trainers, tooling and other items associated with retired nuclear weapons programs.
Dennis Huddleston, division manager of environmental projects and operations for B&W Pantex, said the plant is now in the midst of an accelerated cleanup program, but that some costs will decrease in the coming years.
Some of the environmental costs include upkeep on pump-and-treat programs to remove contaminants from perched aquifer groundwater, long-term monitoring and other cleanup-related programs.
"They (the estimates) are out there as a long-term planning figure and they do get better over time as we get closer to an execution year," he said. "At the end of the day, for most of the environmental stuff, we're very happy and we're very proud of where we've
gotten with it.
"We have done a lot of work and wisely spent the money we have been given to fund the environment (programs) and put the systems in place so that we don't have an ongoing issue, but we have a manageable issue that we're monitoring over time."
But Mavis Belisle, director of the Peace Farm, a group that monitors Pantex issues, said future generations may have to bear the costs for Pantex weapons work.
"Even as Pantex plans to increase bomb production rates, its officials have never been candid with the community about the true costs of environmental mismanagement," she said. "Decades of so-called cleanup may not resolve the problems."
© The Amarillo Globe-News Online
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