Las Vegas Sun

April 26, 2024

Nevada senators, energy chief to tour plutonium holding site

Low-level radioactive waste

Steve Marcus

A waste contailer is shown in the Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site of the Nevada National Security Site (N2S2), previously the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas February 1, 2011.

Nevada's U.S. senators and Energy Secretary Rick Perry plan to visit a site where the federal government is handling weapons-grade plutonium shipped to the state from South Carolina.

A Nevada National Security Site spokesman said Wednesday the Friday tour of the Device Assembly Facility and briefings involving Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen will be closed to the media and public.

Cortez Masto announced the visit last week when she said Perry pledged the federal government would begin in 2021 to remove the highly radioactive material from the former national nuclear proving ground about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

Cortez Masto says Perry also promised no more plutonium from the Savannah River Site would be moved into Nevada.