Nuclear Laboratories Face Steady Worker Losses

New Mexico’s nuclear laboratories are expected to lose about 20 percent of their nuclear-weapon workers over the next decade, according to plans announced Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Department (see GSN, Dec. 19).

Most of the job cuts would come from attrition and transfers to non-nuclear work, the Associated Press reported.

“Fundamentally, this plan is not radical, but an affirmation of the direction the labs have been moving in recent years,” said laboratory proponent Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, high-level nuclear materials would be consolidated at one site, and Sandia National Laboratories would see the removal of all moderate- and high-level nuclear materials.

Sandia would therefore focus more work on non-nuclear material applications.

“We are encouraged that Sandia’s expertise in non-nuclear component work, gas transfer and environmental test is recognized,” said laboratory spokesman Michael Padilla in a prepared statement (Heather Clark, Associated Press/Las Cruces Sun-News, Dec. 19).

The Energy Department plans represent a step back from long-term laboratory goals to build a new nuclear-weapon manufacturing facility, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

The United States once operated a major assembly site at Rocky Flats in Colorado, but the site was closed and cleaned up to address major environmental problems.

Since then, other U.S. facilities have conducted low-level weapon manufacturing and assembly activities.

Los Alamos, under the plans, would make up to 80 plutonium cores for nuclear weapons each year (see GSN, Nov. 16).  For its part, Sandia would continue to contribute design work and some manufacturing for nuclear weapons, according to the new plan (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, Dec. 19).

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