Y-12 National Security Complex - Anti-nuclear Protests

Anti-nuclear Protests

Since 1988, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance has organized non-violent direct action protests at the Y-12 Complex, in an effort to close down the weapons plant. Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, a Catholic nun, has been arrested many times for protesting at the Oak Ridge facility. She has said, "I believe the continuing weapons production at the Y12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is in direct violation of the treaty obligations of the United States and consequently, is a violation of Article 6 of the US Constitution”.

In 2011, Rev. Bill Bichsel, an 84-year-old priest, received a prison sentence of three months for trespassing on federal property at the Y-12 complex. In 2012, there have been protests about the proposed new Uranium Processing Facility, which is expected to cost $7.5 billion.

In July 2012, Megan Rice an 82-year-old nun and two fellow Plowshares activists entered the Y-12 complex and spray-painted antiwar slogans on the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, a structure for storage of weapons-grade uranium. The anti-nuclear activists, who got past fences and security sensors before dawn on July 28, spent several hours in the complex, conducting a Christian peace ritual, before they were stopped by a lone guard. The security breach prompted private experts to criticize the Department of Energy’s safeguarding of nuclear stockpiles. The agency is to reappraise security measures across its nuclear weapons program.