DARHT - an `adequate` EIS: A NEPA case study

The Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) Facility Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) provides a case study that is interesting for many reasons. The EIS was prepared quickly, in the face of a lawsuit, for a project with unforeseen environmental impacts, for a facility that was deemed urgently essential to national security. Following judicial review the EIS was deemed to be {open_quotes}adequate.{close_quotes} DARHT is a facility now being built at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as part of the Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program. DARHT will be used to evaluate the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons, evaluate conventional munitions and study high-velocity impact phenomena. DARHT will be equipped with two accelerator-driven, high-intensity X-ray machines to record images of materials driven by high explosives. DARHT will be used for a variety of hydrodynamic tests, and DOE plans to conduct some dynamic experiments using plutonium at DARHT as well