Official US Department of Energy records show a discrepancy of weapons plutonium at Los Alamos National Laboratory of about 300 kilograms – enough to make 60 nuclear bombs. The potential environmental, health and security consequences are grave. The documents below chronicle IEER’s efforts to get DOE and LANL to account for the discrepancy.
Technical Reports
Dangerous Discrepencies: Missing Plutonium in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex, by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., and Brice Smith, Ph.D. Originally published November 29, 2005, reissued with corrections April 21, 2006.
Related Newsletter Issues
- Dangerous Discrepancies: Missing Plutonium in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex? Summarizes the IEER report. From Science for Democratic Action vol. 14 no. 2, August 2006, pp. 10-15.
- DOE’s Ever-Changing Estimates of Buried TRU Waste. From Science for Democratic Action vol. 7 no. 2, January 1999
Letters
- Letter to US Environmental Protection Agency, March 22, 2006; (Letter to EPA accompanying revised report, April 21, 2006)
- Reply from EPA (May 15, 2006)
- IEER response to EPA (May 15, 2006)
- Letter to Linton Brooks, Administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration (December 19, 2005 )
- Reply from Linton Brooks, NNSA (February 28, 2006)
- IEER response to Linton Brooks, NNSA (March 16, 2006)
- Letter to NNSA accompanying revised report (April 21, 2006)
- Reply from Linton Brooks, NNSA (May 11, 2006)
- Letter to A.J. Eggenberger, Chairman, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (December 13, 2005)
- Reply from DNFSB Chairman Eggenberger) (January 30, 2006)
- Response to DNFSB Chairman Eggenberger (February 8, 2006)
- Letter to DNFSB accompanying revised report (April 21, 2006)
- Letter to Gregory Friedman, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Energy (April 21, 2006)
- Email correspondence with Office of Inspector General, DOE (May 18 and 19, 2006)
- Letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board from 27 organizations (January 26, 2006)
- Letter to Samuel Bodman, Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Energy (December 13, 2005)
- Letter to LANL Director Pete Nanos (August 10, 2004)
- Press Release on letter to LANL Director Pete Nanos (August 11, 2004)
Radio Commentary
Transcript of audio recording (August 2004)
Other Background Documents
1996 DOE memorandum identifying LANL’s plutonium accounting issue (Guimond-Beckner DOE memo, “Plutonium in Waste Inventories”)
Other IEER Publications
- Containing the Cold War Mess (October 1997 report).
- Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age (1992 book).