The Energy Department wants until the end of fiscal 2025 to remove 1 metric ton of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to the latest filing in a state lawsuit on the matter. The eight-year time frame is significantly longer than the two years the state requested in another recent filing.
The federal government’s request comes after four months of deliberations with the state on how best to remove plutonium from SRS. The issue dates to February 2016, when South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the department, claiming it had breached a 2003 deal to either remove 1 ton of plutonium from SRS or convert it into nuclear reactor fuel through the still-unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).
Judge J. Michelle Childs, of U.S. District Court in Columbia, S.C., ordered both sides in March to come to terms on new schedules and timelines for plutonium removal, but the parties told her in a July 31 joint statement that they could not agree on a time frame.
In a separate statement also released on July 31, the state requested that the federal government remove a ton within two years of a ruling from Childs.
The department issued its own statement on Aug. 11, denouncing the state demand as a “feat which would not only be logistically impossible but also impossible to do in compliance with applicable statutes and regulations.”
Plutonium removal through downblending is the quickest and safest way to remove the material, DOE said. However, the method is lengthy due to safety issues that come with handling such hazardous material. “Processing and removing large amounts of plutonium takes a significant amount of time to comply with the myriad statutes, regulations, rules, and requirements that govern the handling, processing, transport, and disposition of defense plutonium. A failure to do so could put Defendants’ employees, the environment, the public, and national security at risk, and this Court should keep these considerations in mind when fashioning its order of injunctive relief,” according to the department’s statement.
“Defendants estimate that they should be able to down-blend and safely remove in accordance with NEPA and all other applicable laws one metric ton of defense plutonium from South Carolina by the end of FY 2025,” the department said.
