None of the 21 drone sightings in 2016 at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina resulted in any significant findings, according to Department of Energy documents recently released via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In some cases, what employees saw might not have even been a drone, the records indicate.
In November 2016, local watchdog SRS Watch submitted a FOIA request to the Energy Department for documents and photographs related to Savannah River Site employees’ reports of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flying above key areas of the 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, S.C.
The department on Sept. 22, 2017, submitted information to SRS Watch Director Tom Clements, who made the material public on Feb. 14. The document includes a two-page letter to Clements, a brief description of each reported drone sighting, and redacted crime reports from the incidents.
From June 19 to Nov. 17, 2016, SRS employees reported 21 sightings above several areas of the site, including: the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), which is being constructed to convert 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel; H Area, where nuclear materials are processed; and E Area, where low-level and transuranic radioactive wastes are stored.
The released documents indicate none of the drone sightings resulted in findings about who was operating the drones, or why. In at least one case, on July 11, 2016, the sighting might have involved an object other than a drone. And on June 30, the object might have been an UAV used for agricultural spraying near but not above the DOE site.
Many of the briefs include similar information about where the drones were seen above SRS, how fast they were going, and how the site responded. For example, the objects were often traveling east and spotted 50 to 100 feet above the SRS tree lines. In most of the early sightings, alerts were issued to SRS security contractor Centerra, and security personnel would spend 30 minutes to an hour investigating. But in four of the final five incidents, a security alert was not declared.
In the middle of the drone sightings, Clements was questioned by the FBI since his organization routinely takes to the air to legally capture aerial images of SRS. But no wrongdoing was ever found.
The sightings eventually led the Energy Department to seek airspace restriction over SRS and its six other Category 1 sites – those that house 2 or more kilograms of plutonium or uranium-233, or 5 or more kilograms of uranium-235.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) approved that request on Dec. 18, 2017. Drone flights are now banned from the surface to 400 feet above ground level at SRS, the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho, and the Y-12 National Security Site and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Breaching the new airspace restrictions could result in potential fines and criminal charges for violation of national defense airspace, the FAA said.
The Savannah River Site did not respond to a request for comment.
