A draft resolution opposing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposal to receive U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany for processing and disposition in Environmental Management facilities at the Savannah River Site (SRS) drew several public comments of support Tuesday during a SRS Citizens Advisory Board committee meeting.
The proposal from the board’s Nuclear Materials Committee supports a “No Action” alternative to a potential HEU shipment to the U.S., which would leave the material in Germany. The committee did not discuss or take any decisive action on the resolution, but plans to meet again in July. The full board would also have to sign off on the proposal if it passes committee.
In January, DOE released a draft environmental assessment that found minimal risk in bringing 900 kilograms of HEU from German research reactors to SRS. In 2012, Germany asked the department for assistance in disposing of the material, which was originally sent to the European nation under the Atoms for Peace program. DOE has not yet made a decision on the HEU, and the “No Action” option is still on the table.
According to the committee’s draft document on the potential shipment, the Department of Energy did not give a “compelling purpose and need for the proposal.” The resolution says the shipment is not necessary since the spent nuclear fuel is stable in its current state, and because Germany is a stable ally that could manage the material without help from the U.S.
The panel also contended that DOE has not evaluated all possible technological and siting alternatives in the event that the material is transferred to the U.S. Not processing the material is a reasonable alternative, the document says, because the uranium is “amenable to long-term storage and disposal as is.” The document further says the proposal will “add to an already large burden of indefinite [special nuclear fuel] and high-level radioactive waste storage at SRS with no established path for disposal.”
During the public comment portion of the Tuesday meeting, a representative of the John Bachman Group of the Sierra Club’s South Carolina Chapter spoke in support of the panel’s proposal to oppose the DOE proposal. “I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to pay attention to [South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley objecting to more spent fuel coming in from other countries,” she said.
A representative from the Conservation Voters of South Carolina also offered a statement supporting the conclusion “that receiving and processing German spent nuclear fuel is not needed for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation and risk reduction goals and therefore the purpose and the need for the proposal is lacking.”
“We are very concerned that the waste would stay here,” a League of Women Voters of South Carolina representative also said.
On Monday, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration announced that a shipment of plutonium from Japan had arrived at the Savannah River Site to be downblended and later stored at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Haley criticized the move, reiterating Tuesday that “South Carolina will not be a permanent dumping ground for nuclear waste.”
