America's Nuclear Arsenal At Risk Due To Safety Lapses At The Only Facility That Can Test Plutonium Cores For Nuclear Weapons

A 2014 aerial view of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility 4 where production setbacks occurred after a safety near miss. (Google)

Washington Post/Center for Public Integrity: Safety lapses undermine nuclear warhead work at Los Alamos

An extended shutdown of the nation’s only scientific laboratory for producing and testing the plutonium cores for its nuclear weapons has taken a toll on America’s arsenal, with key work postponed and delays looming in the production of components for new nuclear warheads, according to government documents and officials.

The unique research and production facility is located at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, the birthplace of the U.S. atomic arsenal. The lab’s director ordered the shutdown in 2013 after the Washington official in charge of America’s warhead production expressed worries that the facility was ill-equipped to prevent an accident that would kill its workers and potentially others nearby.

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WNU Editor: Apparently this problem has been ongoing for a long time .... but it is only now that it is being made public.