The Savannah River Site’s receipt of Japanese plutonium did not come without criticism from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is already fighting a legal battle with the Department of Energy over plutonium stored at SRS near Aiken, S.C. Following a Monday announcement that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had secured highly 331 kilograms of weapons-usable plutonium from Japan, Haley criticized the Energy Department on Tuesday for bringing the material to her state.
Her comments follow a March 23 letter to DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz demanding that he either stop the shipment or reroute it from coming to South Carolina. Though she reported reassurance on the issue after speaking with Moniz in early April, Haley said Tuesday that she is still not backing down. “South Carolina will not be a permanent dumping ground for nuclear waste,” she said.
But Haley’s stance on the issue comes amid longstanding plans for the Savannah River Site to receive more nuclear materials from across the globe for disposal using H Canyon and other SRS facilities. In March, the NNSA lauded the site’s acceptance of plutonium from Switzerland. In December, the agency reiterated its overall plans to bring about 900 kilograms of plutonium to SRS under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. The plutonium is expected to come from countries in Asia and Europe. In total, the site houses 13 metric tons of surplus plutonium.
In a press release Monday, the NNSA noted that the Japanese plutonium is a component of 6 metric tons of non-pit plutonium due to be processed at SRS and ultimately stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The shipment from Japan also included highly enriched uranium that was sent to the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. It is eventually intended to be converted into low-enriched uranium reactor fuel.
