Tag Archives: NNSA

January 2024, Savannah River Site

“Appalling” and “Abysmal”

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How the Department of Energy addressed Governor McMaster’s and Attorney General Alan Wilson’s conflicting and sometimes harsh opinions regarding the future of surplus plutonium.

by Don Moniak
January 22, 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Environmental Impact Statement (SPDEIS) was completed last month and announced in the Federal Register this past Friday, January 19th.  A Record of Decision (ROD) is expected sometime in February, although that ROD might not result in any actual plans.

The Final SPDEIS is the fifth National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis addressing all or parts of 61.5 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium that has been conducted in the past three decades. During that time, the DOE/NNSA’s various contractors have processed and disposed of less than five tons of the surplus stockpile, and spent billions of dollars on a failed plutonium/Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel factory originally intended to handle up to eighty percent of the surplus material. Major changes in plans have occurred at least five times.

The latest analysis was released almost twenty-seven years to the day of the the 1997 Record of Decision to consolidate all surplus, “non-pit” plutonium at DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) for up to fifty years; nearly sixteen tons at the time but later reduced to about twelve tons.  Less than a ton of surplus plutonium has since been removed from the site.

Controversy over the storage decision began in 2002, and eventually resulted in the $600 million settlement between the federal government and the State of South Carolina in August 2020. That settlement requires DOE/NNSA to remove 9.5 metric tons from SRS by 2037. If the recent rate of transfer of plutonium waste from SRS to WIPP continues, that task will not be completed until well after 2040.

In the meantime, more than forty additional tons could be imported into South Carolina, stored, and then processed into waste over the next three to four decades. Several more tons of non-surplus plutonium is scheduled to be transported to SRS for the job of producing new plutonium pits for the weapons arsenal.

The Final SPDEIS nearly mirrors the Draft SPDEIS released in January 2023; summarized in Feds Propose 27 More Tons of Plutonium for Processing at Savannah River Site.  The preferred alternative and associated sub-alternatives remains the same: Use some combination of capabilities at SRS and Los Alamos to convert upwards of 34 metric tons (MT) of surplus military grade plutonium to plutonium oxide powder, dilute the plutonium into a less easily retrievable waste form, and dispose of that waste in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). 

The proposed action (Figure 1) does not commit to a specific plan. SRS could be assigned the whole job, part of the job, or very little of the job. 

Figure 1: Simplified version of DOE/NNSA’s proposed action to dispose of up to 34 metric tons of surplus military-grade plutonium. The total includes approximately 27 tons of plutonium within weapon components known as “pits,” which are the primary nuclear trigger in the U.S. arsenal; and 7.0 tons of already separated plutonium in metal or powder form.



Since January 2023, sixteen changes were made to the nearly one-thousand-page record, in response to 121 written comments submitted during the two month public comment period, and 53 oral comments made during three in-person public meetings and one Zoom call. The public comment process was incredibly subdued in comparison to the competitive spirit between weapons communities in the late 1990s; when thousands of comments were submitted, hundreds spoke at public hearings, and Senator Strom Thurmond described weapons workers in Texas as “amateurs.” (Comments and responses are contained in Volume III of the SPDEIS.)

Three of the submitted comments were from the South Carolina Congressional Delegation, Governor Henry McMaster, and Attorney General Alan Wilson. 

The comments and concerns from our elected representatives had several contradictory themes:

  • An obsession with long-term plutonium storage, but a near absence of concern about the most pivotal aspect of the program—the future availability of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for disposal of the final plutonium wastes produced at SRS (most likely) or LANL (least likely). 
  • Skepticism to outright hostility towards DOE/NNSA, but strong support for the DOE’s Savannah River Site and its contract workforce.
  • Support for the more dangerous task of importing and processing more than forty tons of plutonium at SRS, but opposition to the more benign task of long-term storage. This is in keeping with the nearly decade-old tradition of South Carolina political leaders of welcoming plutonium into the state, but terming above-ground, long-term plutonium storage as “plutonium dumping.” 

DOE/NNSA’s responses to the comments from SC elected officials were uniformly finalized as:

“These comments did not result in a modification in the Final EIS.”

The most strident comments (Figure 2) were made by Attorney General Wilson, which included, in bold type, that:

“DOE/NNSA has an appalling record of not following through on its promises or projects. Its project management is abysmal, and South Carolina’s pessimism of DOE/NNA’s ability to implement any proposed alternative is well earned.” 

Wilson also wrote that, “DOE/NNNSA must be committed to removing the weapons grade plutonium on a schedule that ensures that South Carolina is not the dumping ground for such plutonium.” DOE/NNSA did not commit to any schedule, and Wilson’s comments “did not result in a modification to the Final EIS.”

Figure 2. Comments made by Attorney General Alan Wilson, with reference to DOE/NNSA’s response. (Highlighting is in the original document)


Wilson’s most harsh comment was lumped into the response category of “General Opposition to SPDP and NNSA/DOE.”  In other words, AG Wilson’s comments were not well accepted by the federal government. 

Such objections in the past have resulted in thinly veiled threats from NNSA. In 2018, a State of South Carolina lawsuit led by Wilson that opposed NNSA’s decision to terminate the MOX program resulted in the prospect to move tritium production operations from SRS:

“In light of this injunction, NNSA must reevaluate the viability to execute enduring missions at the Savannah River Site.”

Comments from the Governor’s office were more tactful. Governor McMaster wrote that his support for decades of more plutonium processing at SRS should “not be construed as support for long-term storage of surplus plutonium in South Carolina.” Because of his concern that “South Carolina not become a permanent plutonium repository,” McMaster asked NNSA to “conduct regular, direct, and detailed briefings with me and members of my staff.” (Page 229 of comments)

To this request, the DOE/NNSA merely responded that “NNSA has committed to periodic briefings on progress toward meeting the removal commitment to the Governor and the Attorney General of South Carolina.”

Of course, the Governor’s comments “did not result in a modification in the Final EIS.”

The Congressional Delegation’s joint letter was the least combative and most diplomatic, stating only that “NNSA does not have the greatest track-record with the State regarding a follow-through on commitments.” The delegation also asked for updates, continued operation of WIPP, compliance with legal obligations, and “maximum possible transparency;” while stating “ we are not supportive of long-term storage of surplus plutonium storage in South Carolina.” (Page 223).

Overall, DOE/NNSA issued platitudes to South Carolina’s highest elected officials, committed only to a minimal level of compliance and token updates on its progress, and refused to set a hard schedule for removal of plutonium. Again, there were no modifications of the Final EIS as a result of the delegation’s concerns.

DOE/NNSA’s responses are to be expected when, on the one hand, political leaders express full support for Savannah River Site, its corporate contractors, and the prospect of importing and processing more than forty additional tons of plutonium (Figure 3) into South Carolina; while on the other hand expressing distrust in the same federal cabinet agency that owns and oversees the Savannah River Site to merely store the material during the same time period.

Figure 3: Diagram in the SPDEIS showing the various forms of surplus plutonium and their future pathways. DOE/NNSA remains undecided on how to move forward with 18 tons, and has only disposed of less than five tons (3.2 MT of “scraps, residues” were transferred from Rocky Flats to WIPP in the early 2000s; and SRS has shipped less than 1 MT to WIPP since 2018.)



Footnotes

(1) Regarding the DOE/NNSA response methodology.

In the past, DOE printed individual comments with responses on an opposing column on the same page. Concerned parties who took the time to comment on matters affecting their communities and their constituents could see responses to their concerns without exerting any additional effort.

In Volume III of the Final SPDEIS, DOE employed a torturous response method. The agency’s contractor first sorted all comments into nearly thirty categories. These were followed by the actual comments. Determining DOE’s response to individual comments requires the concerned party to backtrack to the category of concern. For example, Attorney General Wilson would have to refer

For example, to determine DOE’s response to comments by Attorney General Alan Wilson published on page 255 of the comment section, the AG’s office would have to backtrack to five different response groupings on five separate pages.

The system is symbolic of the general attitude of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Agency; that “you the people” work for “us the government.”

(2) The plan does not involve changing the isotopic composition for the plutonium to make it less attractive for re-use in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

January 2023, Offsite Insights, Savannah River Site

“Plutonium is not for Amateurs.” Part 2:

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Offsite Insight 2023-2: What will the Chamber of Commerce say after $Billions in SRS worker claims?

by Don Moniak

January 19, 2023

The lively plutonium (Pu) disposition debates in the 1990’s, which at one point included Senator Strom Thurmond describing Texas nuclear weapons workers as “amateurs,” were very different from today’s muted discourse. The most dramatic change might be the quiet acceptance that hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons workers, uranium miners, and nuclear testing downwinders suffered harm during the Cold War, when safety was often secondary to production. A second change in South Carolina involves an erosion of public trust in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) among its strongest supporters.

In the early 1990’s, more than fifty tons of military plutonium resulting from the end of Cold War plutonium production, coupled with the dismantlement of thousands of nuclear weapons under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START), was declared surplus to national security needs. An international effort to dispose of excess plutonium to prevent it from being used in future nuclear weaponry coalesced in both the U.S. and Russia in the early 1990’s. The debate over how to pursue disposition was long and contentious, and has remerged following decades of failed and stalled efforts.

While the surplus weapons plutonium was viewed as a threat by nuclear nonproliferation advocates, it was also viewed as an economic opportunity by communities in the shadows of some traditional nuclear weapons production industrial sites like the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, the Pantex Plant in Texas, and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, the prospect of jobs for disposing the tremendous volumes of plutonium-contaminated Cold War waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) created a new community ally for Department of Energy (DOE) disposition schemes.

Prior to disposition, surplus plutonium needed to be stored. In the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA), SRS community boosters accepted the proposal to centralize surplus plutonium storage for up to fifty years at the site. But the local expectation in exchange for this acceptance of mere storage included operational jobs, mostly in the form of a plutonium fuel production plant that would convert the excess plutonium into commercial fuel for nuclear power plants.

This form of plutonium fuel is called Mixed Oxide fuel, or MOX, because it mixed plutonium and uranium oxides. In the 1990’s and through the early 2010’s, MOX was viewed as a “sword to plowshares” program by the Atoms For Peace lobby that began in the early 1950’s.

The Pu/MOX fuel plant was one of many promised by the Department of Energy (DOE), and SRS boosters wanted the whole package. In addition to the MOX fuel plant, which was most coveted, DOE dangled three other facilities in its plutonium storage and processing bonanza package:

  • An Actinide Packaging and Stabilization Facility (APSF) to store non-pit plutonium including metals, alloys, and powders; and provide a means of stabilization if necessary.
  • A Plutonium Immobilization Plant (PIP) that would dilute the plutonium with inert materials and isolate it within the massive stainless steel canisters of glassified waste at SRS’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The glassified, or vitrified, waste at DWPF is the end product from the conversion of unstable, highly radioactive sludge contained in dozens of underground, million gallon waste tanks housing decades of waste generated by plutonium production.
  • A Plutonium Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility (PDCF) to disassemble sealed plutonium pits, separate the classified pit parts, and convert the plutonium within to an declassified, powdered oxide form.

    Across the CSRA, every local government body issued resolutions in support of plutonium missions at SRS. Rallies were held and mail-in post card campaigns drew thousands of participants. Some regional opposition to these 21st century plutonium central proposals existed in distant environs such as Columbia, Savannah, and Atlanta, but local dissent was largely viewed and treated as heresy.

    Local Chambers of Commerce predictably joined forces to issue a unified message in support of SRS, and other groups ranging from the local NAACP to the North Augusta City Council followed their lead and endorsed identical resolutions. Within their resolutions endorsing “major plutonium missions for the Savannah River Site,” the Aiken and North Augusta Chambers of Commerce included one statement that is unlikely to be repeated today:

    “…the Savannah River Site has produced approximately 40 percent of all the US weapons grade plutonium over the last 45 years and has safety handle plutonium in glovebox processing equipment with no adverse impact on workers, the public, or the environment.”
1998 Aiken Chamber of Commerce resolution in support of plutonium work at Savannah River Site.. Identical resolutions were adopted by the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce, Aiken Chapter of the NAACP, Aiken County Council on Technical Education, Barnwell County Council, the Lower Savannah Council of Industry, North Augusta City Council, and the Savannah River Regional Diversification Initiative


Whereas comments of support from U.S. Senators Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings and Aiken County Council cited a the history of “safe” plutonium operations at SRS—without every defining “safe”—the Chamber of Commerce resolution took the further step of claiming no harm to workers, people outside the gates, or our environment.

Much has changed since 1998. CSRA communities and the State of South Carolina became increasingly wary of DOE’s plans after the cancellation of the APSF (2000), the PIP (2002), the PDCF (2007), and finally the treasured MOX plant (2018). Instead of modern buildings, SRS was left with operational facilities that are now nearly seventy years old, and an unfinished plutonium/MOX fuel plant.

DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which took over the management of the remaining nuclear weapons program at the turn of the century, salvaged much of the lost goodwill by promising to convert the unfinished plutonium/MOX plant into a new plutonium pit production facility. The plan is to make 50 new plutonium pits per year, mostly for new nuclear weapon designs, even as DOE/NNSA proposes to discard ~500 pits per year for the next twenty years.

Even with the prospect of pit production, the loss of the MOX plant was the last straw at the Capitol, and the loss of production work soured the taste of top officials for the relatively benign mission of long-term plutonium storage. As described in SRS CAB Might Stop Snubbing Barnwell and Allendale Counties, in the years of litigation and lobbying that resulted in the the state’s $600 million plutonium settlement with DOE, politicians who rarely uttered a negative word about SRS suddenly expressed trepidations about the prospects of becoming a “plutonium dump.”

In pursuit of the largest slice of the plutonium settlement pie, the Aiken Municipal Development Commission, which included Aiken Chamber of Commerce President David Jameson, sent letters to the Aiken state legislative delegation suggesting there was harm done from seventy years of special nuclear materials work at SRS:

“There is no debate that due to 70 years of SRS operations, Aiken County and the City of Aiken share the greatest impact and risk in South Carolina. Aiken County serves as the home of virtually all the 35 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste which is a result of the production of nuclear materials such as plutonium. The liquid waste is stored in large carbon steel tanks and serves as the State of South Carolina’s #1 environnmental risk and will impact our community for decades.”

This statement provides a sharp contrast in perspectives in the two decades since local Chambers and their allies claimed no harm—a false claim DOE and its SRS contractors chose not to dispute. But it pales in comparison to the second change since 1998: the steady cascade of worker illness claims following the passage of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) in 2000. The act was passed to:

“Compensate current or former employees (or their survivors) of the Department of Energy (DOE), its predecessor agencies, and certain of its vendors, contractors and subcontractors, who were diagnosed with a radiogenic cancer, chronic beryllium disease, beryllium sensitivity, or chronic silicosis, as a result of exposure to radiation, beryllium, or silica while employed at covered facilities.”

The compensation act created new sub-bureaucracies within the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services to handle the flood of claims from former workers from across the former and current nuclear weapons complex, including SRS workers. To help navigate the bureaucracy and the complexities of radiation and toxic substance dose reconstruction, a cottage industry of health care providers emerged that promised assistance for former workers whose illnesses qualified for the program, and law firms followed suit.

The nuclear weapons workers health care companies advertise on local television stations and send out mass mailings to former employees. Some companies even set up not for profit organizations to complement their efforts, such as the now ubiquitious Cold War Patriots.

Cover for a publication from Nuclear Care Partners http://nuclearcarepartners.com, an EEOICPA specialist firm.



Since the passage of the compensation program, former SRS workers have been awarded nearly two billion dollars in claims involving more than 20,000 cases and 12, 385 workers:

“As of 01/08/2023, the total compensation paid under Parts B and E of the EEOICPA, including medical compensation, for workers suffering from the effects of having worked at the Savannah River Site is $1,913,612,814. “ (Stephens and Stephens law firm, citing Department of Labor statistics).

Department of Labor statistics for SRS compensation claims under EEOICPA.


While the nuclear weapons worker compensation program created a new business opportunity in former and current nuclear weapons complex communities, the proclamation of “no harm” by the local Chambers of Commerce was known to be false at the time.

While not well publicized, SRS and other plutonium sites medically treated workers who inhaled plutonium with a chelating agent known as Diethylene Pentacetate (DTPA). According to a 1980’s DuPont medical department pamphlet, between 1965 and 1985 “more than 235 people received more than 650 doses of DTPA” at SRS, then known as Savannah River Plant (SRP).

Savannah River Plant medical department pamphlet, circa 1985.


In other words, people were harmed on the job and had to seek medical treatment. Strom Thurmond was right when he stated, “plutonium is not a material to be handled by amateurs,” but wrong to have implied Pantex weapons workers were amateurs. Two days after the uproar in Amarillo over his comments, Senator Thurmond’s office sent a letter to SRS Manager Greg Rudy that left out the “amateurs” charge:

“Plutonium is far too volatile a material to be handled by individuals or facilities that have no experience in dealing with it.”

August 13, 1998 letter. Red block shows change in language from June 23, 1998 letter.


The local Chambers of Commerce never admitted how wrong their assertion of “no harm” was. What will the Chambers say this time as SRS is back on the docket for a proposal to import another 25-35 tons of plutonium for processing into a diluted waste.

“Plutonium is Not For Amateurs.” Part I.

————————————————————————————————————

*Disclosure : Don Moniak was a paid organizer, writer, and researcher from 1997 to 2003 for two non governmental organizations working on the plutonium disposition issue:
Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping, Amarillo, Texas (1997-2000); and Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (2000-2003).












December 2022, Offsite Insights, Savannah River Site

Feds Propose ~27 to 34 More Tons of Plutonium for Processing at Savannah River Site

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Texas to New Mexico to South Carolina to New Mexico is Proposed Pathway for Remaining Surplus Plutonium.

by Don Moniak

December 16, 2022

Plutonium-239 is a man-made radioactive element that is acutely deadly at the scale of milligrams, chronically toxic at the scale of micrograms, decays into more intensely radioactive elements and isotopes, and is useable in nuclear explosives of mass destruction at the scale of kilograms. It has been described as “a physicist’s dream and an engineer’s nightmare.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS, formerly Savannah River Plant) produced an estimated 36 tons of the material from the 1950’s to late 1980’s for the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Processing of the resulting unstable, radioactive liquid waste into a relatively stable form has been ongoing since the 1990’s and is expected to continue into the 2040’s. When production ceased in 1990, two tons of plutonium remained in storage, of which approximately 1.5 tons was eventually declared surplus.

Today there is an estimated 11.0 to 11.5 tons of plutonium presently stored at the site, which encompasses parts of Aiken, Barnwell, and Allendale counties in South Carolina. Of this total, 9.5 tons was transferred from other nuclear weapons material and parts production sites—most notably Rocky Flats, Hanford, and Los Alamos—following DOE’s 1997 decision to centralize storage of weapons plutonium.

Two years ago the State of South Carolina reached a $600 million settlement with the federal government over the 9.5 tons of military-grade, surplus plutonium transferred to SRS. Today, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administriation (NNSA) published a proposal to ship upwards of 27 additional tons of surplus military-grade plutonium to SRS for processing into a waste form through a process called “dilute and dispose”(1).

The proposal was revealed today in a Federal Register notice announcing a sixty-day public comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program (SPDP EIS). The impact statement is the latest National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document addressing the future of 34 metric tonnes (MT) (2) of plutonium that has been deemed surplus to U.S. defense needs since the early 1990s.

The basic dichotomy for the surplus plutonium begins with:

a. relatively “clean” and pure plutonium within nuclear explosive components known as “pits.” There were presently an estimated 14,000 plutonium pits stored at DOE/NNSA’s Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant near Amarillo, Texas; of which approximately 10,000 are deemed surplus and 4,000 are “strategic reserve.” Each pit averages There is ~3 kg of plutonium.

b. plutonium not within pits, with highly variable purity levels, most of which is now stored at SRS.

The exact figures for each category are distorted and confused by classification methods, as DOE/NNSA has never revealed precise quantities contained in pit plutonium. However, since the 1990’s the general accepted total of surplus plutonium metal contained in pit form is approximately 25-27 tons.

From: Plutonium, the Last Five Years, Part 2. The two categories to the right constitute the 34 tons currently being analyzed.



Since the 1990’s military nuclear weapons complex agencies have conducted multiple environmental impact statements. Efforts to convert 34 metric tonnes of military plutonium into either a waste form or into commercial, mixed-oxide (Pu/MOX) nuclear fuel moved forward, then faltered, and finally failed by 2018, eventually leading to the plutonium settlement between DOE and South Carolina. Less than one ton of the higher purity plutonium constituting the surplus stockpile has been converted to a waste form in twenty-five years, and an estimated quarter-ton was processed in the past year.

The Department of Energy has been shuffling disposition options for surplus, non-pit plutonium since the mid 1990’s.  As Ed Lyman reported in his definitive report of DOE/NNSA’s programmatic failures, Surplus Plutonium Disposition: The Failure of MOX and the Promise of Its Alternatives, DOE/NNSA changed its treatment preferences for 13.1 tons of non-pit surplus plutonium eight times in a thirteen year period. The chronic indecision was a contributing factor to the huge cost overruns that helped to end the Pu/MOX fuel fabrication alternative. 

The shifting plans for surplus, non-pit plutonium. From: The Failure of MOX and the Promise of its Alternatives,

After abandoning efforts to convert military plutonium designed for use as nuclear explosives into Pu/MOX fuel, weapons complex agencies moved forward with a disposition method known as “dilute and dispose.” Simply put, “dilute and dispose” involves mixing very small amounts of plutonium (1-3%) with large amounts of a classified mix of materials to create a waste form for permanent disposal.

The only disposal site in the U.S. approved to accept this waste is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Southeastern New Mexico. There remains intense opposition to importing any more plutonium-laden waste into the state than what was originally planned during its design and approval stages in the 1990’s.

In today’s announcement, the NNSA stated its preferred alternative is to pursue the “dilute and dispose strategy for 34 MT of surplus plutonium,” a process involving several steps for plutonium not already at SRS:

  • Ship up to 27 tons (3) of plutonium from the Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the Texas Panhandle to the Los Alamos National Laboratory near Sante Fe, New Mexico. 
  • Disassemble plutonium pits, separate the plutonium from other parts (4) and convert the plutonium metal within to  plutonium oxide powder.
  • Ship the plutonium oxide powder to Savannah River Site near Aiken and Barnwell, South Carolina for dilution into a waste form. 
  • Ship the waste to the WIPP near Carlsbad, New Mexico for disposal. 

    Three alternatives to the preferred alternative are:

  • Ship plutonium pits to SRS for disassembly and conversion of the plutonium metal to plutonium oxide powder, followed by the dilute and disposal pathway.  This option probably ties in with the proposed new plutonium pit fabrication plant at SRS.
  • Perform the dilute and disposal pathway at Los Alamos and keep the entire process in New Mexico. 
  • The No-Action alternative, which would leave the plutonium pits in long term storage and avoid unnecessary shipping, processing, and increased plutonium waste dumping at WIPP. 

Not included among the alternatives is the option of demilitarizing plutonium pits by “stuffing” them with inert materials, a proposal first floated in the late 1990’s. Plutonium pits are designed for long-term storage in the nuclear warhead, and can remain stored without expensive shipment and processing.

After years of South Carolina officials declaring that the state could become a permanent plutonium dumping ground, the state is now facing the renewed prospect of SRS processing three times the plutonium presently stored onsite and awaiting dilution and repackaging; as well as fabricating 80 or more new plutonium pits for new nuclear weapon designs at a plutonium pit production plant being designed for production beginning in the early 2030’s.

As reported in Offsite Insight 2022-1, nuclear watchdog Tom Clements informed the SRS Citizen’s Advisory Board about this prospect at their July, 2022, meeting, at which he distinguished between the plutonium already at SRS and the plutonium potentially headed there:

“The number was given as 9.5 MT in the agreement with the state. But there is 11.5 ton onsite because 2.0 tons were already there. But the amount of plutonium to be disposed of is up to 34 tons….We are looking at a tremendous amount of plutonium coming into the site. The CAB will have a very important role in insuring more material is not stranded here.” 

Next story: “Plutonium is Not for Amateurs, Part I.”

Residents in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) that surrounds the Savannah River Site have the opportunity to comment on the latest proposal either in person or in writing. DOE/NNSA will hold a public meeting upriver from SRS at North Augusta City Hall, 100 Georgia Avenue, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on January 19, 2023. A virtual hearing will be held on January 30, 2023, and comments may be submitted to SPDP-EIS@nnsa.doe.gov.

The Draft EIS, Federal Register Notice, meeting materials, and listing of public comment opportunities is at https://www.energy.gov/nepa/doeeis-0549-surplus-plutonium-disposition-program

and the Draft EIS is at:

https://www.energy.gov/nepa/articles/doeeis-0549-draft-environmental-impact-statement-december-2022


Footnotes

(1) Information regarding the program can be found at:

Presentation material for 3013 Cans and K Area Storage and Processing:

Click to access DOE3013ContainerProgram.pdf

Click to access StorageandDownblend.pdf

A DOE presentation to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018 provides more details: 

Click to access McAlhany-SurplusPuDisp_Jun2018.pdf

(2) A metric ton is 1,000 kilograms, equal to 2200 pounds or 1.1 tons.

(3) The DOE/NNSA announcement states that up to 34 MT could be shipped from Pantex, but no documentation exists suggesting there is 34 MT of surplus plutonium within pits, and Pantex presently stores less than one ton of plutonium not within pits. The EIS will, however, analyze the movement of 34 tons from Pantex.

(4) Highly Enriched Uranium within plutonium pits will also be separated and shipped to the Y-12 nuclear weapons material plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.