Trident Subs May Lack Warheads : Defense: The plant that makes nuclear triggers is closed. The Navy has only enough weapons to fully arm the first two ships.

Continuing safety and environmental problems at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado are threatening to halt the Navy’s $62-billion Trident submarine program, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The Navy has only enough nuclear weapons on hand to equip the first two Tridents, which are scheduled to be commissioned--each with a full complement of 24 eight-warhead Trident 2 ballistic missiles--by the end of the summer.

Deployment of any additional ships will require a supply of plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads from Rocky Flats, which has been shut down since November because of concerns about worker safety, mismanagement and environmental contamination.

Plutonium is used to trigger the atomic reaction in nuclear weapons.

The first two Tridents--the Navy’s most modern nuclear-powered submarines--are undergoing sea trials in preparation for deployment. Five others are under construction and Congress has authorized the building of two more.

Spokesmen for Rocky Flats’ operating contractor have said that the plant may be able to begin restarting operations in the third quarter of this year, but some government nuclear experts say privately that it may be two years before operations can be resumed.

As a result, the Navy is expected to be faced with a dilemma: It either must send future Tridents to sea only partly armed or it must delay their deployment until the plant resumes production of plutonium, even if the plant is restarted in late summer.

Modernization of other nuclear weapons has also been put on hold because of the problems at Rocky Flats, defense officials said.

The Trident 2, or D-5, missile that is to be carried aboard the new submarines is considered by many military experts to be the most accurate and survivable weapon in the U.S. arsenal.

Despite some early testing failures, the weapon has proven reliable and extremely accurate in later trials, and the Trident program as a whole has been cited as a model of military procurement. Construction of the Trident 2 is America’s highest nuclear weapons priority.

Publicly, the Navy has remained restrained in discussing the problem. “Supply and production of weapons-grade plutonium is a matter for the Department of Energy,” the service said in a statement.

“The Navy has received no notification of impending disruption and fully expects to meet Trident 2 production schedules.”

Privately, however, Navy officials acknowledge that continued delay in the program will have a serious effect on the Trident deployment plan.

The first two submarines--the Tennessee and Pennsylvania--are scheduled to begin operations this year. Deployment of the third ship, the West Virginia--slated for next spring--is being jeopardized by the nuclear weapons moratorium, Navy officials said.

The Navy plans to build 21 of the Trident subs at a cost of $1.3 billion each. It expects to buy 871 Trident 2 missiles at a total cost of $35.5 billion.

If the Rocky Flats plant is unable to resume plutonium production by late June, “the operational date of the system is threatened,” a senior Pentagon official said. “If you stop plutonium-part production at Rocky Flats, the first and most significant victim is the Trident program. Improving the safety and security of the stockpile of (other) weapons would be stymied.”

James R. Schlesinger, the former energy secretary and one-time defense secretary, told a congressional panel last week: “The weapons complex is in the process of being shut down. The necessary components (for nuclear weapons) are not being delivered . . . . Within a matter of weeks, we will no longer be able to assemble nuclear weapons.

“We virtually have reached the point where we cannot proceed with the Trident program,” Schlesinger said. “That concerns me,” he added.

Congressional sources said that Energy Secretary James D. Watkins had only recently been fully briefed on the details of the long production delay at Rocky Flats.

Plutonium reprocessing operations at the plant were suspended last November after a flurry of allegations that managers there were lax about safety and that the plant was burning nuclear waste material. The Federal Bureau of Investigation once raided the facility.

In January, federal officials replaced Rockwell International Corp., which had been managing the plant since 1975, with the firm of Edgerton, Germeshausen & Grier Inc. Since then, EG&G; has been involved in cleanup and reorganization.

Last week, the Energy Department approved a detailed EG&G; plan for restarting operations, looking toward renewed plutonium processing in June or July, but sources said Wednesday that hopes of returning the plant to operation by early summer seem optimistic.

Rep. David E. Skaggs (D-Colo.), whose district includes the Rocky Flats site, said the plan appeared to suffer from an inordinate number of items “still to be determined.” Before the plant is restarted, he said, he favors an independent review of the safety steps being taken.

The Rocky Flats plant, built in 1952 about 20 miles from downtown Denver, is the only U.S. facility that produces plutonium parts, or “pits,” for use in nuclear weapons.

Plutonium from retired nuclear weapons is refined and purified at Rocky Flats for use in new weapons. After the plutonium is processed, the triggers are sent to Texas for insertion into nuclear warheads.