IEER | Missing Plutonium - Index

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Plutonium Discrepancies in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex

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 implications are huge. The documents below chronicle IEER's efforts to get DOE and LANL to account for the discrepancy.

IEER report: Dangerous Discrepancies: Missing Weapons Plutonium in Los Alamos National Laboratory Waste Accounts November 29, 2005, reissued with corrections April 21, 2006

Article: 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.

Correspondence with officials:

Letter to US Environmental Protection Agency, March 22, 2006

Reply from EPA, May 2, 2006
- 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
- Response to Linton Brooks, NNSA, March 16, 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 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

IEER radio commentary, August 2004

DOE's Ever-Changing Estimates of Buried TRU Waste, from SDA vol. 7 no. 2, January 1999

IEER report: Containing the Cold War Mess, October 1997

Guimond-Beckner DOE memo, "Plutonium in Waste Inventories" January 30, 1996

Available at EggheadBooks: Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age (International Physicians Press, 1992)

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Comments to Outreach Coordinator: ieer at ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA

July 19, 2006