The Department of Energy and South Carolina are set to have it out in federal court Thursday in the first scheduled hearing of a $100 million lawsuit in which the state alleges the DOE blew a legal deadline to dispose of 1 ton of plutonium now stored at the Savannah River Site (SRS).
Under a 2003 deal with South Carolina, state Attorney General Alan Wilson alleged in the lawsuit filed Feb. 9 in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, DOE was required by Jan. 1 of this year to either process 1 metric ton of plutonium at SRS in the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility still under construction there, or remove a metric ton of plutonium from the state.
“At bottom, the Federal Defendants’ response has been a sneering denial that it will comply with these statutory mandates and duties,” the state wrote in a June 21 motion supporting its request for summary judgement in the case.
DOE — which wants the case thrown out of court — says removing plutonium from South Carolina is not as simple as the state makes it seem, and that, in any event, the District Court is not the proper venue for the case. The agency also said its 2003 federal facilities agreement with the state did not require it to remove plutonium from SRS by Jan. 1.
“It is estimated that removing one metric ton of defense plutonium from South Carolina for storage only would take approximately five years, after all technical and regulatory requirements are met,”DOE wrote in a response to South Carolina’s June 21 filing. “South Carolina has litigated this case as if removing one ton of undiluted weapons-usable plutonium is a simple matter of putting a one-ton barrel on a truck and driving off.”
South Carolina says DOE was supposed to begin paying $1 million a day to the state after Jan. 1, a fine that capped off at $100 million on April 9. The state seeks both the money and the removal of the plutonium, and has filed for a summary judgment from Judge J. Michelle Childs that would grant both demands. Wednesday’s hearing will address both DOE’s motion to dismiss the suit and South Carolina’s motion for summary judgment.
