ALBUQUERQUE — The federal government is proposing to move ahead to replace a nuclear facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but critics of the multibillion dollar project contend a newly released environmental analysis was done to back up a decision that's already been made.

The National Nuclear Security Administration released a draft supplemental environmental impact statement last week that favors building a modified version of the nuclear facility portion of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement project, known as CMRR. One building of the two-structure complex is finished, and the new environmental document addresses the second, the nuclear facility.

The NNSA wants to change the building's design to address seismic safety and other improvements, although no final design has been selected. The lab adopted a seismic analysis standard in 2007, four years after the original environmental impact statement for the project.

A National Defense Authorization Act report in November estimated the CMRR's cost at $3.7 billion to $5.8 billion. That's an increase from a 2008 Senate report, which projected a cost of $2.6 billion, about five times the initial estimate.

The NNSA, an arm of the Department of Energy, said the building is critical to nuclear national security missions ranging from counterterrorism to making sure the nuclear weapons stockpile is safe and reliable.

Critics, however, maintain its rising cost and new information on the area's earthquake dangers require the government to review whether the project should go ahead at all.

"They have a fixed agenda and they're pursuing it," said Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, one of several groups opposing the nuclear facility.

Coghlan and Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group contend NNSA decided to build the nuclear facility and now is coming back with a document to back up the decision. The study group sued last August, alleging the Department of Energy and the NNSA violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not doing a completely new environmental impact statement for the project.

Coghlan criticized the supplemental environmental statement for failing to offer "credible alternatives."

But Toni Chiri of the NNSA's Los Alamos Site Office said the document shows the government has analyzed various alternatives. NNSA is trying to consolidate activities to make operations safer and more efficient, she said.

The agency chose the modified version of the nuclear facility as its preferred alternative. The environmental statement also looked at the options of sticking with the building as envisioned in a 2003 environmental impact statement or having scientists continue working in the current 60-year-old chemistry and metallurgy building, which the NNSA has long maintained is inadequate and outdated.

Chiri said a decision on the project is expected in the fall.

Critics have argued Los Alamos can meet its nuclear security needs in other ways.

"There's not a clear mission need" for the nuclear facility, Coghlan said.



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