Fail Safe? Story aired: Wednesday, August 18, 2004
It's called Technical Area 18, and it is said to be the most vulnerable nuclear storage facility in the Los Alamos National Laboratory complex. Technical Area 18 houses several tons of weapons grade uranium and plutonium.
The Department of Energy has ordered all fissile material removed from Technical Area 18. But according to a government watchdog group, when the University of California, which runs Los Alamos, recently proposed doing that ahead of schedule, DOE bureaucrats said no.
To explain how that could be, we are joined by Peter Stockton. He is senior investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, based in Washington DC.
We also speak with Bryan Wilkes, he a spokesman for the NNSA, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency responsible for managing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
Guests:
Peter Stockton, Senior Investigator for the Project on Government Oversight.
Bryan Wilkes, Spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
