| SUBSCRIBE | | Why we charge |
|
|
|
Front Page
news state
Friday, August 08, 2008
NNSA Agrees To Post Lab Site Plans Online
Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS — A watchdog group's quest for 10-year site plans for Los Alamos National Laboratory has led to an agreement in which plans will be posted online.
The National Nuclear Security Administration and Nuclear Watch New Mexico ended their dispute with a stipulated agreement July 30 for the agency to post the plans in the future.
The new procedure will begin with fiscal year 2009 and applies to the eight nuclear weapons research, testing and production sites.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico sued in federal court in Santa Fe in 2006 to force the U.S. Department of Energy and the NNSA to turn over 2003 through 2006 site plans under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
The environmental organization has said that such documents typically include plans for new buildings and production of plutonium pits, the triggers for nuclear warheads.
The DOE said plans will be placed on the Internet as they are accepted and approved by the NNSA headquarters in Washington. The agreement calls for plans to be posted on a Web site within 60 days of headquarters accepting them, and includes strict language on justifying anything that's blacked out, or redacted.
The Santa Fe group contended the plans contain important information on the direction of the federal nuclear weapons lab, while the federal agencies maintained that the matter was one of national security.
The lawsuit said there's a "strong national public interest in obtaining unclassified information concerning the NNSA's operation of and planning for the nation's nuclear-weapons complex," including Los Alamos, "which in the past has caused massive environmental degradation and potential threats to the public's health, safety and welfare."
The group had said it received a 2004 report, but about 40 percent of the 250 pages were blacked out.
Nuclear Watch said hundreds of previously redacted passages from previous requests were provided during the court challenge.
Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch, said Thursday he could not say exactly when the first site plan would be available, but that it could be in a month or so under the expected normal cycle.
Last September, U.S. District Judge Bruce Black ruled that the NNSA offered no rationale for its multilayered, cross-country review process or its resulting delay. He noted the Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to respond to requests for information within 20 days and that 10-day extensions are allowed when there are unusual circumstances.
"This makes a mockery of the 20-day target set by the act and violates congressional intent," Black wrote.
In November, a federal judge in Las Cruces ruled in favor of another activist group, Citizen Action, in its battle to obtain documents on nuclear waste sites, monitoring and 10-year plans for future activities at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.
Citizen Action had sued in August 2006 under the Freedom of Information Act to compel the NNSA and the DOE to release the records. The group, formed over concern about possible contamination from Sandia's Cold War-era mixed waste landfill, sought that lab's 10-year comprehensive site plans and records related to irradiated materials at the landfill.
Dave McCoy, director of Citizen Action, said Friday that NNSA has since provided information, including generally unredacted copies of four different years of 10-year comprehensive site plans.
Copyright ©2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Albuquerque Journal Subscriber Services
Submit a news tip | Place a classified ad | Advertise Online at ABQjournal | Advertise in Albuquerque Journal print products | Subscribe to newspaper
Save & Share
Tag this Page
| 
...go to bookmarks
E-mail Story
Print Friendly
