TACOMA — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Kitsap County from releasing information about plans for responding to accidents involving nuclear warheads at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton granted a temporary restraining order at the request of the Navy, the FBI and other federal agencies.
The agencies sued Kitsap County on Monday, after it said it was planning to release documents about nuclear accident response planning and exercises pursuant to a public records request from a community activist. They argued that Kitsap County only had the documents because it participated in joint training exercises with federal responders, and a condition of the county receiving the documents was that it not release them without authorization.
Furthermore, the Navy said, the documents at issue include information about convoy movements of nuclear warheads on base, as well as information about capabilities for responding to a range of scenarios, from accidents to an attack by extremists.
“If exploited, this information could provide a potential adversary with information that would allow it to determine how, when and where to most effectively execute an attack,” Navy Capt. Thomas W. Armstrong wrote in a declaration to the court.
In the complaint, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the federal agencies had worked with the community activist, Glen Milner, to release redacted versions of some of the documents, and that work was continuing. However, Kitsap County informed the agencies on Nov. 30 that it feared violating Washington’s Public Records Act, and that it intended to release all of the documents unless the agencies obtained a court order preventing it from doing so by Wednesday.
The Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office could not immediately be reached for comment after business hours Tuesday. Milner’s records request sought documents “regarding the consequences of a radiological accident or similar event” at the base.
The judge said the Navy had made a showing that it was likely to win its case, and that the nation could be irreparably harmed if the sensitive national security information is disclosed. He set a hearing for Dec. 24.
