Guest opinion by VANESSA CROSSBROVE FRY
Vanessa Crossgrove Fry, of Hailey, is the development director of the Snake River Alliance, Idaho's nuclear watchdog and works out of the Alliance's Ketchum office. You can contact Mrs. Fry at (208) 726-7271 or at http://www.snakeriveralliance.org.
Plutonium production 65 miles from the Wood River Valley?
Yes, another dangerous nuclear program that will put workers, the public, and our land and water in harm's way has been proposed for Idaho. The U.S. Department of Energy wants to consolidate the production, purification, assembly and testing of plutonium "batteries" at the Idaho National Laboratory, despite the risks to Idaho's "low-use segment of the population."
Why does the DOE need to produce more plutonium? They want to use it for national security and NASA missions. Currently the DOE has a contract to purchase plutonium from Russia. However, the plutonium-238 from Russia cannot be used for national security missions. Therefore the driving force behind production in Idaho is for classified and secret purposes.
It is this secrecy, like that seen during the Cold War, that gives reason to expect that once again worker and public health dangers will be shrouded and environmental harm hidden. Furthermore, though the EIS states the national security uses of the plutonium will not be for nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapons, military satellites, in space or in any missile defense systems we've also been told that the national security mission could change. The change would go unknown since it would be a secret change to a secret.
The DOE's reason for consolidating the production in Idaho is also for security. "The purpose and need for agency action is to consolidate [battery] production at a single site to reduce the security threat," the DOE states in the draft Environmental Impact Statement. Plutonium-238 is a special nuclear material (SNM) and therefore needs to be 'rigorously protected against theft, loss, and sabotage ... and is strictly contained (to prevent an accidental release) as a result of the health and safety risks presented by the material." Regardless of these threats, the DOE does not analyze terrorist scenarios in the draft EIS.
The risks of this project are substantial. Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 88 years, much shorter than the more familiar "bomb-grade" Pu-239's half-life of 24,000 years. The flip side is that Pu-238 is more radioactive and therefore more hazardous to people and the environment.
According to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), a root cause of a 2003 accident at Los Alamos National Lab was the DOE "failed to balance management attention and resources between accomplishing the programmatic mission and providing an appropriate level of protection for the workers handling Pu-238." The government valued plutonium more than people.
Regions outside the proposed plutonium factory, including the Wood River Valley, could be imperiled as well. The DNFSB sees systemic problems with the HEPA filters proposed for use in the facility. "Confinement viability demands that these filters be highly dependable, yet beyond question their efficacy has deteriorated."
The batteries to be produced at the INL cause grave global concerns as well. Past space accidents involving plutonium-238 batteries on satellites have already contaminated the entire planet. With NASA's new head calling for a more direct association with the Department of Defense and the Air Force pursuing space-based weapons systems the forecast looks like our heavens may become littered with weapons. The INL may be in the thick of plutonium production before anyone is able to connect all the dots.
When this factory was first proposed, the Post Register called on the federal government "to assure Idahoans that what's being built in their back yard is something they can feel good about -- or at least not bad about." This hasn't happened.
This project brings with it potential for human and environmental harm, more dangerous material into Idaho and paves the way for more secretive, perilous and dirty programs in Idaho.
The DOE will hold a hearing in Ketchum on July 20 (time and location to be announced). Please speak out for Idaho's future.
