South Carolina’s governor and attorney general have asked the U.S. Energy Department to find a neutral third party to determine whether it would cost more to complete a controversial plutonium-disposal project at the Savannah River Site or cancel it.
According to a letter dated Feb. 23, which subsequently leaked to the press, Gov. Henry McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson in early January asked Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette for a third-party audit of the embattled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).
The over-budget facility, which was supposed to be complete by 2016, is intended to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel under an arms control pact with Russia. For the past three years, the Department of Energy has asked Congress to cancel the project, which the agency now says is unaffordable.
McMaster and South Carolina’s congressional delegation have opposed the plan and complained DOE lacks a credible cost estimate for its preferred alternative to the MFFF: diluting the plutonium at yet-unbuilt Savannah River facilities and disposing of it deep underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
In his letter to Brouillette, McMaster requested to meet with DOE staffers who could discuss issues including Congress’ failure to support dilute-and-dispose and the absence to date of permits or facilities to carry out the work at Savannah River.
A DOE spokesperson in Washington said the agency replied to McMaster’s letter, but would not provide a copy of the response by deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. McMaster’s office did not reply to multiple requests for comment this week.
Last week, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told members of a House panel with jurisdiction over DOE that the MFFF is “obscenely over budget,” and that the agency still wants to proceed with dilute-and-dispose.
“It is imperative that this successful MOX program is not stopped based on faulty assumptions,” McMaster wrote. “Further, the whole life-cycle of Dilute and Dispose costs must be included in this estimate.”
McMaster made his plea for intercession with DOE in the middle of preparing a congressionally mandated waiver to close down MFFF.
In the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers said the department could halt construction if the agency can prove an alternative approach could process the 34 metric tons of plutonium for less than half the cost of doing the work at MFFF as planned. If DOE has completed that waiver, it has not been made public.
Meanwhile, both South Carolina and the prime contractor for MFFF are suing DOE over the facility. The state claims the agency violated federal law by not starting plutonium processing by 2016, while the contractor — CB&I AREVA MOX Services — alleges DOE’s own bad management caused delays constructing the plant. The Department of Energy has refuted both claims.
