South Carolina and the Department of Energy need at least another month to decide whether it is “feasible” to settle the state’s $100-million 2018 lawsuit over several metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium stranded at the Savannah River Site.
“The parties continue to engage in discussions to determine whether it is feasible to resolve this matter without further Court involvement,” according to a joint status update filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The somber tone of that filing clashes with the last status update to Judge Margaret Sweeney, in which the agency and state said it could be “possible to resolve the pending disputes [over the plutonium] without judicial resolution.”
From 2002 until 2014, the Department of Energy shipped around 10 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium to Savannah River for disposal as part of a post-Cold War pact with Russia to reduce national stocks of military-grade fissile materials.
South Carolina, which initially fought the plan, relented after Congress tweaked federal law to require that DOE either process the plutonium at Savannah River beginning in 2014 or remove it by 2016 — and, if it did not remove the plutonium by 2016, to pay the state $1 million a day, capped at $100 million per year, until it did.
The Energy Department intended to convert the plutonium into commercial reactor fuel using Savannah River’s now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). The plant was not even complete by Jan. 1, 2016, prompting South Carolina to sue.
Upping the pressure on DOE, the settlement process covered by Tuesday’s status update addresses only fines from 2017, for which the state sued at the beginning of 2018. A separate lawsuit over the $100 million in fines from 2016 was dismissed without prejudice, meaning South Carolina could refile it.
