America's nuclear arsenal is constantly in flux. Older warheads are retired and dismantled as new ones are built. Some elements of nuclear bombs, like radio active tritium becomes stale over time and must be refurbished. There are changes in storage sites, quality control checks. This routine maintenance and production requires frequent movement of nuclear weapons and components. It is accomplished through a large transportation network that includes specially designated cargo planes of the Air Force, freighters under the control of the Navy, and a fleet of highway tractor trailer rigs operated by the Department of Energy. DOE, which oversees the production, assembly, and testing of nuclear weapons, has forty-five custom-built trucks to transport the weapons to more than one hundred military installations in twenty-two states. Headquarters for the transport operations is Albuquerque, New Mexico. Department spokesman Ben McCarty says the truck fleet logs over four million miles a year hauling their special cargo.
"They'll be carrying nuclear weapons, special nuclear materials, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium and classified non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons."
Once delivered to military storage facilities, the weapons often are then transported by air or ship to bases around the world. The military, following standard practice, refuses to discuss its nuclear transportation operations. However, the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research group based in Washington, has used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain military documents on those operations. They were made available to NPR.
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