Gearing up for public comments on the plutonium-pit-production draft Programmatic EIS, likely coming in May 2026:
Every Day, Nukes Are Riding Right Past People Like You
The United States government ships its nuclear materials, mostly on US interstates, in unmarked semi trucks.
Inkstick media, February 19, 2026: https://inkstickmedia.com/every-day-nukes-are-riding-right-past-people-like-you/
excerpts:
On Oct. 1, 2024, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it produced, for the first time in over a decade, a new plutonium pit — the explosive core of nuclear weapons — at Los Alamos National Lab. But what does this have to do with a high schooler biking along the interstate during the pandemic? As part of a new plan to restart large-scale production of plutonium pits for the first time since the Cold War, the NNSA plans to ship nuclear cores across the length of US interstates without clearly informing residents. This raises the risk of accident — or malicious attack — for American communities along the interstates, like mine.
Not only is the NNSA restarting pit production; it will do so at multiple production sites. Plutonium pits will be produced for the first time at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. SRS is over 1,200 miles from both Los Alamos, where pits are also being produced, and the Pantex plant in Texas, where the pits will be assembled into new nuclear weapons for the first time since the end of the Cold War. This plan, which seems to be driven more by a desire for jobs at SRS than suitability for the task, will expand the production and transportation zone for nuclear weapons dramatically.
The NNSA has historically been cagey about transparency surrounding nuclear shipments, leaving the work to mostly outside groups. A famous map from 1988 by the Radioactive Waste Campaign showed most routes used by the weapons complex when nuclear material was mostly shipped by train. A curious map by Jeff Berlin, which seeks to show all trucking routes for nuclear materials, was featured in a 2012 Mother Jones article. [with Clements quoted and Nuclear Watch South mentioned] Because it lacks sourcing, it is hard to tell where the information is from and how accurate or reliable it is, although clearly some of it — the Air Force missile and Navy submarine bases, for example — is correct. It shows a web of routes criss-crossing the country from upstate Washington to central Florida. These maps are still some of the best preserved windows into how the nuclear weapons complex has evolved.