Pantex Plant - History

History

The Pantex plant was originally constructed as a conventional bomb plant for the United States Army during the early days of World War II. The Pantex Ordnance Plant was authorized February 24, 1942. Construction was completed on November 15, 1942 and caused workers from all over the U.S. to flock to Amarillo for jobs building bombs.

Pantex was abruptly deactivated after the war ended. It remained vacant until 1949, when Texas Technological College in Lubbock (now Texas Tech University) purchased the site for $1. Texas Tech used the land for experimental cattle-feeding operations.

In 1951, at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy (DOE)), the Army exercised a recapture clause in the sale contract and reclaimed the main plant and 10,000 acres (40 km2) of surrounding land for use as a nuclear weapons production facility. The Atomic Energy Commission refurbished and expanded the plant at a cost of $25 million. The remaining 6,000 acres (24 km2) of the original site were leased from Texas Tech in 1989.

Also in 1989, the DOE Rocky Flats Plant, located near Golden, Colorado, was deactivated as a plutonium processing center due to environmental concerns, urban encroachment, and protest by activist groups and loss of mission when Congress did not approve the next generation weapon design. The deactivation of Rocky Flats necessitated the interim storage of plutonium at Pantex.

In 1994, the Pantex plant was listed as a Superfund site. The US Environmental Protection Agency has not determined what contaminants and exposure risks are at the facility, but has determined that groundwater contamination was not under control at that time. Cleanup construction was completed in 2010, and EPA currently lists this site as "Current human exposures at this site are under control" and "Contaminated ground water migration is under control".

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in 1998 documented a statistically significant incidence of increased cancer rates and low birth weights in the some of the counties surrounding Pantex, however the counties closest to the plant (Armstrong and Carson) had no significant increase in cancer rates. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded that the Pantex Plant was not likely to be associated with these findings because of the multifactorial nature of birth defects and cancer, and the lack of measurable contamination coming from the Pantex facility.

Pantex employed approximately 3,600 people in 2010 and had a budget of $600 million for fiscal year 2010.