The U.S. Department of Energy said last week it is ahead of schedule in removing 1 metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and should finish the court-mandated process by the end of the year.
The Energy Department update was seemingly prompted by a March 1 letter that South Carolina filed in a lawsuit against the federal agency. Both letters were sent to U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs in South Carolina, who is overseeing the February 2016 lawsuit.
South Carolina appeared critical of the federal government’s lack of information regarding plutonium removal. But the Energy Department said information is sensitive in nature and is largely classified for national security reasons.
While DOE filed its letter in the February 2016 suit, South Carolina’s memorandum to Childs was filed for a separate case last May. In that lawsuit, the state sought to save the now-terminated Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at Savannah River. The 1 metric ton of plutonium is part of the 34 metric tons that were supposed to be converted into commercial nuclear reactor fuel at the MFFF, under the terms of a 2000 agreement between the United States and Russia. The May lawsuit remains open, even though the project was officially terminated on Oct. 10.
Having failed to process the 1 metric ton of plutonium, the Energy Department is required under a deal with South Carolina to remove it from the state. The agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) confirmed in January that, before November 2018, it had shipped half of the tranche of plutonium to the National Nevada Security Site. The remaining material is expected to be sent to the Pantex Plant in Texas. Ultimately that material will be used at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for production of the plutonium cores of nuclear warheads.
In its March 1 letter, South Carolina said it had no idea if the remainder of the ton of plutonium had been shipped out of Savannah River Site to another DOE facility. “The State has not been provided any further information regarding the status of the remaining one-half metric ton of plutonium,” attorneys for South Carolina wrote.
A week later, the legal team for the Energy Department told Childs that they have shown good faith by removing half of the plutonium ahead of schedule. The agency added that it is on pace to meet Childs’ Jan. 1, 2020, deadline to remove the rest.
The Energy Department added that little information on removal efforts is being provided because plutonium shipping is a national security issue. “Counsel for the State appears to criticize Defendants for failing to disclose the specific information about the quantity of plutonium that had been removed and shipped to Nevada in the status report filed with this Court on December 14, 2018, and failing to update that report with such information,” the agency said. “However, the information about the shipments to Nevada was not declassified until well after December 14, 2018, and South Carolina, as a party to the Nevada litigation, was fully aware of all publicly available information from the moment it was filed.”
The March 8 letter is the latest filing in a longstanding battle over the now-terminated MFFF. The federal government had sought to shutter the project for years, citing schedule delays and cost overruns. The entire project was estimated to cost three times the original $17 billion projection.
The February 2016 lawsuit also sought payment of up to $100 million, per a 2003 agreement between South Carolina and the Energy Department. The agreement states that if at least 1 ton of the material had not been processed through the MFFF, or removed from South Carolina, by Jan. 1, 2016, the Energy Department would have to pay South Carolina $1 million a day, capped at $100 million annually.
Since the February 2016 lawsuit, South Carolina has moved the monetary claim to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and has updated the suit to include penalties from 2017 and 2018. The South Carolina Attorney General’s office confirmed in January that it will also be seeking money from 2019. Through Tuesday, that brings the total to $370 million and counting.
