Oak Ridge Today

Officials say little about Monday hearing on Y-12, Pantex contract

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Y-12 National Security Complex

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge is pictured above.

Officials said little about the federal hearing held Monday to discuss the consolidated but contested contract to manage the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas.

The hearing is related to the protest filed by Nuclear Production Partners LLC, or NP2, which has contested the decision to award the contract to Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC of Reston, Va. Originally announced in January 2013, the contract could be worth up to $22.8 billion over a decade.

The hearing had originally been scheduled for Jan. 29, but it was rescheduled. [Read more…]

Judge says Y-12 protesters not contrite as snow delays sentencing

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Y-12 Plowshares Protesters

Pictured above are the three anti-nuclear weapons protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalized a uranium storage building. From left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed.

KNOXVILLE—The three protesters who cut through fences and vandalized a uranium storage building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in July 2012 have not shown contrition or accepted responsibility for what they’ve done, a federal judge said during a Tuesday sentencing hearing.

The three anti-nuclear weapons activists—Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael R. Walli—have acknowledged that they splashed human blood, hung crime scene tape, and hammered on the side of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility on July 28, 2012. They have freely given interviews to reporters and admitted that they spray-painted slogans—they called them “Biblical graffiti”—on the side of the HEUMF, which stores most of the nation’s bomb-grade uranium.

But acknowledging their actions is not the same as contrition, U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar suggested during a Tuesday sentencing hearing at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Courthouse in Knoxville. To accept responsibility, the trio would have to show contrition and remorse, and acknowledge that what they did was wrong, Thapar said.

However, the defendants have fought the government at every step in the 18-month-old case, the judge said. [Read more…]

Y-12 protesters to be sentenced Tuesday morning

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Y-12 Plowshares Protesters

Pictured above are the three anti-nuclear weapons protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012. From left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed.

The three protesters convicted on federal charges after sneaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex and splashing human blood and spray-painting slogans on a uranium storage building in July 2012 will be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on Tuesday morning.

The sentencing hearing for the three anti-nuclear weapons activists—Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael R. Walli—is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The defendants will be sentenced individually after a joint hearing to hear witness testimony and objections to a pre-sentence report.

The government plans to call retired Brig. Gen. Rodney L. Johnson as a witness. He testified at the two-day trial in May, and he is the senior vice president and deputy general manager of security operations and emergency services at Y-12.

A Catholic nun, house painter, and laborer, Boertje-Obed, Rice, and Walli were convicted in May 2013 of destroying U.S. property and attempting to injure national defense premises. They acknowledged sneaking into Y-12 before dawn on July 28, 2012, and cutting through three fences in a high-security Protected Area before vandalizing the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, where most of the nation’s bomb-grade uranium is stored. But they said their unprecedented intrusion was peaceful, religiously motivated, and nonviolent, a symbolic disarming of Y-12. [Read more…]