Posted on 04/01/2004 8:19:40 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Today: April 01, 2004 at 10:42:47 PST
By Mary Manning
<manning@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS SUN
A key Energy Department nuclear weapons program will begin a move from New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Nevada Test Site in September, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday.
The move involves relocating sensitive nuclear materials, including several tons of plutonium, enriched uranium and other bomb-making devices.
Los Alamos' Technical Area 18, or TA-18, facility is used for testing and measuring nuclear materials, as well as training, the DOE said.
It will take an estimated 18 months to ship all of the nuclear materials to the Device Assembly Facility at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, officials said.
Critics have said the New Mexico site is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. Officials with a government watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight, have praised the Energy Department for moving the nuclear facility from New Mexico to Nevada.
NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said, "Getting this material out of TA-18 and to Nevada will assist the NNSA in more quickly establishing critical national security missions in Nevada while consolidating special nuclear materials in a newer, more secure facility."
While security has been strengthened at TA-18, more than a ton of special nuclear material has already been removed because it is no longer required, Brooks said.
The Device Assembly Facility, or DAF, was built at the Nevada Test Site in the late 1980s to support handling of nuclear materials before underground nuclear experiments. The U.S. halted underground nuclear explosions in September 1992.
The DAF is used to support subcritical experiments, underground explosions that do not sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
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Print out this form and send it in;
The Freedom of Information Act Office
National Imagery and Mapping Agency
4600 Sangamore Rd.
Bethesda, MD. 20816-5003
Dear NIMA,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 USC 552, I herby request the following document: NEVADA TEST AND TRAINING RANGE CHART, NSN 7641014867735, NIMA Ref. No. NTTRC01. Formerly titled Nellis AFB Range Chart, stock number NRCXX01.
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Now, it is an easier target for a special assault by air.
There are many locations to air-drop onto and then move toward the town, take the necessary facilities and secure the airfield, and then move out with the prize.
It can be defended, but at much greater cost, than where the material is headed.
Not to mention that the area is a hotbed of socialists and the largest increase in mid-Eastern "ex-patriots" [we are told], who have "come for their health," who may be happy to help the bad guys.
Not to mention how many of them are the remnants or offspring of the "Spit on U.S. Troops" Generation.
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