Mum is the word on when shipments of highly enriched uranium (HEU) are scheduled to arrive at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina following a recent federal court decision against environmental groups seeking to block the transports from Canada.
“In order to preserve operational security, DOE/NNSA does not comment on planned shipments of nuclear material,” a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesperson said in response to questions regarding any planned shipments of nuclear weapon-usable HEU or plutonium slated to arrive at SRS this fiscal year. In the past, the agency has often waited to announce a shipment until after the material has safely arrived at SRS.
The response comes after a federal judge ruled on Feb. 2 against a lawsuit that sought to force the Department of Energy to produce a new environmental impact statement for shipments of HEU from Canada to the Savannah River Site. Plaintiffs’ attorney Terry Lodge said Wednesday they are “still discussing whether to appeal, or not.” SRS was supposed to begin receiving material in September 2016, but the two sides agreed to postpone shipments at least until Feb. 17 while the lawsuit was adjudicated.
The August 2016 lawsuit charged that DOE and NNSA had not taken the necessary steps before the department authorized up to 150 shipments totaling 6,000 gallons of HEU. The shipments to SRS are part of a 2010 agreement between then-President Barack Obama and then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for repatriation of the U.S.-origin HEU. Once at SRS, the material will be downblended and sent to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) where it will be used as reactor fuel.
The truck route to send the material to SRS begins at the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. facility in Ontario, then goes over the Peace Bridge and through western New York on its way south to SRS.
The groups were asking that shipments not start until the Department of Energy completes an environmental impact statement (EIS) that details the potential risks of moving the material. Meanwhile, the Energy Department argued that an EIS was not required because the agency fully complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by conducting a supplemental analysis in 2013 and another in 2015. Both concluded the transports constitute low risk because the HEU will be shipped in containers specifically designed and fabricated for holding the liquid material.
Over the past few years, SRS has received several shipments of HEU through various agreements, such as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). In September 2015, for example, the site received 1 kilogram of HEU from Jamaica and 2.2 kilograms from Switzerland. Under the GTRI, the U.S. has removed or eliminated more than 5,000 kilograms of HEU since 1994. Much of that material has been handled at SRS, though it is unclear how much.
