Plans to build an underground pit storage bunker in the Pantex Plant's Zone 12, the plant's "on again, off again" pit consolidation project, appear to be back on the table again, according to site officials. Pantex Site Office Manager Steve Erhart said last month that National Nuclear Security Administration weapons program chief Don Cook had chartered a review of infrastructure issues at the site that includes a look at potentially consolidating the storage of pits that are currently stored in the site's Zone 4 and Zone 12. Site contractor B&W Pantex recently took steps to alleviate the looming pit storage crunch facing the site by changing the way the plutonium weapons cores are stored, but an underground pit storage bunker has long been considered as a way of more efficiently consolidating pits at the site that could potentially generate significant cost savings.
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