NO REPRIEVE
MOUND WILL BE CLOSED

NEWS

Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary said her predecessor's plan for consolidating the nation's nuclear weapons production system "is cost effective and should be implemented."

MOUND PLANT * Owner: Department of Energy. * Operator: EG&G Mound Applied Technologies Inc. * Plant size: 306 acres. * Buildings: 130. * Current work force: 1,644. * Payroll: $70 million. * Peak employment: 2,400 in 1985. * Function: * Develops and manufactures non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons, including explosive detonators. * Recovers and refills radioactive tritium vessels used in H-bombs. * Tests parts pulled from stockpiled nuclear weapons. * Manages commercial tritium sales and sales of stable isotopes. * Assembles plutonium-fueled generators and heat sources for space probes and military uses.

In a sharp break with Bush administration policy, however, O'Leary said the Energy Department "will make every effort to assist in transitioning these facilities to productive operation in the non-defense arena."

The plan will move Mound's non-nuclear weapons production work to the Energy Department's Kansas City site. Mound's work with radioactive tritium will go to the Savannah River site in South Carolina.

Two other plants also will lose work under the plan: non-nuclear production work now done at the Pinellas Plant in Florida and the Rocky Flats plant in Colorado will be relocated.

The consolidation is to begin around Sept. 1, Energy Department officials said, but it's not expected to have an immediate effect on employment at Mound.

Layoffs probably won't begin until 1995, and even with loss of weapons work, the Mound Plant will keep a work force of 800 to 1,000 people, a local Energy Department official said.

Most of those workers will be involved in environmental restoration at the site, an effort that is expected to last at least 10 years.

EG&G Mound Applied Technologies Inc. now employs 1,644 people at the plant.

Current employees will be given
priority in applying for cleanup jobs, said Michael Gessel, aide to U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Dayton.

A small number of employees also will continue working on plutonium-fueled electrical generators and heat sources for spacecraft for the next several years. The plutonium work also will require Mound to retain a security force.

Mound supporters repeatedly clashed with the Bush administration, which originally decided to close the plant and offered little assistance for converting the facility to civilian uses.

The Clinton administration has made a priority of defense conversion, and the Miamisburg area could be a beneficiary.

O'Leary said the department will provide $15 million in economic assistance in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, which Mound will share with the Pinellas and Rocky Flats plants.

Other department officials said more money will be available from other sources. They also said the department will try to place some of its non-defense work at Mound and will help Mound seek contracts with private businesses.

Hall said he was "shocked and disappointed" by the decision, which followed a review of the plans by three outside consultants.

"I found some shortcomings in the process," he said.

But overall, he said, "The process has been fair, and I cannot say that the results would have been any different even if my concerns were handled better.

"The closing of Mound is a direct result of the end of the Cold War and the reduction of hostility between the superpowers of the world. We have to view this decision as an opportunity for new directions."

Similarly, Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said "You can't very well argue with" O'Leary's decision.

"We asked for experts to re-look at this thing," Glenn said. "I don't quarrel with these guys. I don't doubt they gave their independent judgment to it."

non-nuclear consolidation is to begin around Sept. 1, Energy Department officials said. Mound is to stop producing non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons by Sept. 30, 1995.

Mound's work with radioactive tritium is to end sometime in 1996, when a new tritium facility is to become fully operational at the Savannah River site.

Mound's production of nuclear power sources for NASA space vehicles would end in 1997 or '98, unless NASA ordered additional work that could be carried out at the plant.

The plans initially were prepared by the Bush administration's energy secretary, James Watkins. At the request of Hall and Glenn, O'Leary agreed to reconsider.

In three independent reports presented to O'Leary on Monday, the consultants said Watkins' plans were reasonable and cost-effective.

"Detailed calculations" showed that the Watkins plan would be less expensive than consolidating work at Mound or Pinellas, consultant John Foster Jr. said.

"Simple reasoning" also supported the plan, he said.

Consolidating tritium operations at Savannah River should be less expensive because there is less to move and Mound then could be closed, Foster wrote. The Savannah River site is expected to be open for decades for other work, he said.

"The Kansas City plant should be the appropriate place to consolidate (non-nuclear) fabrication simply because most of it already takes place there," he said.

Similarly, consultant Terry Lash said "the easiest element to decide is the consolidation of the proposed activities at the Kansas City plant.

"The majority of non-nuclear work is already performed at the plant," Lash wrote. "It is a very well-managed facility that clearly has the capability to perform the functions that it would receive under the proposed consolidation."

It was more difficult to decide where the tritium work should go, the consultants said.

The department will publish an "environmental assessment" around the end of June. It will include an analysis of the proposal to consolidate tritium at Mound and a report on radiological risks the tritium consolidation might pose to workers.
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STAFF WRITER Timothy R. Gaffney contributed to this report.