South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson wants a faster resolution and no trial in the state’s pursuit of $100 million and the removal of plutonium from the Savannah River Site – both of which are stipulations dating to 2003 when South Carolina agreed to house the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Department of Energy site near Aiken, S.C. The MFFF is an integral part of the MOX project, which is designed to carry out the United States’ side of a U.S.-Russian agreement for both countries to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium.
A 2003 agreement between the Energy Department and the state required that either 1 metric ton of the plutonium be processed through the MFFF or removed from the state by Jan. 1 of this year. Neither happened, and now Wilson is seeking $1 million per day, which capped off at $100 million on April 9.
He sued the Energy Department and others on Feb. 9 and went back to the federal court on April 6 with a motion for a summary judgment. “There is no genuine dispute of any material fact, and the State is entitled to judgment granting the relief sought in the Complaint as a matter of law,” Wilson wrote in the motion. “The Defendants owe non-discretionary, mandatory duties to the State… to remove defense plutonium or defense plutonium materials from the State, and to provide economic and impact assistance payments to the State, which the Defendants undisputedly have not performed.”
Wilson is also asking that a second ton of plutonium be removed from the state by Dec. 31 and that no more plutonium be brought to South Carolina until there is a ruling in the lawsuit. Both requests are stipulations under the 2003 agreement, according to Wilson. The state Attorney General’s Office has declined to comment further on the issue and the Energy Department has repeatedly denied to comment because the litigation is pending.
