Having grown up in Amarillo as a 2-3 year old kid, my mother and I lived in Army converted barracks housing while my mother worked at Pantex and dad was still overseas in WWII. Then in HS I delivered building materials, etc., during the 50's to various projects at Pantex I can say there was and has been through the years all sorts of "secrecy" - special clearances and passes required to work there - and individual jobs and job titles, etc., are very secretive. I spent some time out there during the Silas Mason & Hanger years as well.
Amarillo has lived under a cloud of "what if" re: Pantex as long as i can remember. For a long time no one who didn't work there really didn't know exactly what happens at Pantex. Of course, now it is fairly well known that the U.S. repository of nuclear weapons and their destruction occurs at Pantex. And that it is part of a sister facility in Tennessee - which is all part of "does it stay open, get consolidated - or what??"...
I am personally aware of some "safety" incidents and "exposure" lawsuits that affected some of my closest friends - some of whom are now deceased as a result of that exposure and whose families won settlements.
If Pantex were to close it would be a tremendous blow to the Amarillo economy. Much like the closing of Amarillo AFB in 1968. God forbid that either Pantex or Bell Helicopter, etc., should ever move out...
To follow, now that Trump has declared we will not be reducing our U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal further, and that we will be "improving and upgrading" to make our military stronger... - I suspect Pantex will be around for a long, loooong time. And, continue to work closely with bases in New Mexico - particularly Holloman, Sandia and Kirtland AFB. We should never place all our eggs in one basket. The runway at Amarillo's Rick Husband is part of the old Amarillo AFB and has runways built to withstand the biggest, heaviest payload aircraft the U.S. has ever built or will build for the foreseeable future (B-52's, Space Shuttle, etc.). It is a real benefit to the area and to keep Pantex open. Same for the old Clinton-Sherman AFB runways just across the border in OK.
In cold war years there was a list of targets in the U.S. that were considered top priority for hits from the Russians. Pantex was always near the top of that list and in the top 10.
AAAAAAAAAAg - Air Force Aggie Architect and Hospital Administrator fm Amarillo, Altus, Austin, Arabia, Arkansas, Africa, Seoul, Bahrain, Amman, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, DFW-Fairview, Ramstein, San Antonio, Pentagon, OKC, JCAHO/JCR - '65, '69, '73 - A&M Letterman (ret).
Winston Churchill: “If you’re not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you’re not a capitalist in your thirties, you have no mind.”