The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to perform an environmental impact statement about plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., according to a notice filed Monday in the Federal Register.
The public will have 45 days to comment on the agency’s proposed environmental impact statement (EIS) about a contentious plan to repurpose the cancelled — and partially built — Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility into a factory that could annually produce 50 fissile warhead cores by 2030.
“NNSA anticipates that it will prepare at least three documents including: A supplement analysis (SA) to the Final Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic EIS (Complex Transformation SPEIS); a site-specific EIS for the proposal to produce pits at SRS; and site-specific documentation for the proposal to authorize expanding pit production at” the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Federal Register notice reads.
Environmental Impact Statements examine the hazards of proposed actions by the federal government. Such documents are also an agency’s way of showing how planned activities will comply with federal environmental law.
The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to make at least 80 pits a year by 2030 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Savannah River. NNSA- and DOD-chartered reports dating to 2018 at least have cast doubt on whether the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency can reach that goal with the projected budgets.
The Democrat-controlled House wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to tap the brakes on the plutonium program and focus on making 30 a year at Los Alamos by 2026. Appropriations and Authorizations bills due for debate this week in the lower chamber have proposed limiting funding for pit production in 2020 as a way to force the National Nuclear Security Administration to focus on Los Alamos pit production.
