Plutonium to be shipped to Pantex plant in Texas Panhandle

Amarillo’s Pantex Plant will be busy as ever as it gets ready to  receive shipments of weapons-grade plutonium from South Carolina.

The National Nuclear Security Administration confirmed that preparations have been underway for weeks at Pantex, the nation’s primary facility for assembly, dismantlement and maintenance of nuclear weapons.

“These operations will involve the use of a container type that is not currently employed at Pantex,” read a weekly report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Another report revealed a safety supplement was approved for the Pantex operation.

The plutonium will be moved from the Savannah River site as part of a 2017 court order mandating the operation. How much is unclear at this time. The NNSA does not reveal such information.”

“So I’m not at liberty to discuss the movements, the shipments, the dates, the times, the locations, the routes of those materials,” NNSA chief Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said during an April 9 U.S. House Armed Services Committee hearing. She was responding to questions posed by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican.

It remains unclear what will happen to the Savannah River Site plutonium. The National Nuclear Security Administration indicated in a 2018 study that it could be sent to either the Texas Panhandle plant or one in Nevada then transported to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for possible future nuclear weapons work.

The receipt of South Carolina plutonium at Pantex is corroborated by a July 2018 NNSA study, which states the SRS-stored plutonium could be sent to Nevada or Texas for staging and then on to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for future nuclear weapons work.

Also not disclosed is the means of transportation of the plutonium. If it is by truck, the most likely route would be Interstate 40 through Oklahoma and to the Texas Panhandle.