South Carolina and the Department of Energy said last week they had failed to settle a $200-million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to begin removing weapon-usable plutonium from the state by Jan. 1, 2016.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims case had been on hold for about a year, during which DOE made only a single “lowball” settlement offer that South Carolina “rejected out of hand,” according to a status report filed Friday by the state’s legal team.
In the status report, South Carolina asked Judge Margaret Sweeney to grant a motion for summary judgment and award the state the $200 million in fines it says DOE owes for failing to begin removing around 10 metric tons of surplus weapon-usuable plutonium from the Savannah River Site.
In a separate status report filed Friday, the Energy Department said it does not object to resuming the case. The federal filing did not address claims in South Carolina’s status report that the agency’s allegedly lowball offer was a cynical gesture made only so DOE could claim it tried to settle the case.
Sweeney had not scheduled further action in the case at deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
The Savannah River Site is the hub of a major plutonium disposal program under a 2000 U.S.-Russian arms-control agreement, under which each nation vowed to eliminate 34 metric tons of military-grade plutonium declared surplus to defense needs after the Cold War ended.
The Energy Department originally planned to convert its stockpile into commercial nuclear reactor fuel using Savannah River’s now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). In 2016, the agency asked Congress to terminate the project and instead approve an alternative approach called dilute-and-dispose that could begin converting plutonium into a form suitable for off-site disposal by 2028.
Congress is close to approving dilute-and-dispose, although the agency would still be on the hook for annual state fines until the MFFF alternative actually gets the surplus plutonium out of South Carolina.
