STAFF

Recycling plans in danger

Web posted August 20, 1999

By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

The lack of a shipping container for plutonium endangers a proposed Savannah River Site plant that would recycle the radioactive metal, a federal board has ruled.

Plans for a mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel plant are ``in peril,'' the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wrote last week.

The problem is the lack of a container to ship plutonium ``pits'' from Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas to SRS, the board wrote.

In its first recommendation this year, the board implored the U.S. Department of Energy to step up work at Pantex to package pits in safer containers. Energy Department officials have 30 days to respond.

Many of the pits -- the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons -- are scheduled to come to SRS, where the MOX plant would turn their plutonium into fuel for civilian nuclear reactors.

The plant would cost about $560 million and create 350 jobs at the federal nuclear-weapons site, which lost thousands to post-Cold War layoffs in recent years. The plant would be a cornerstone of a $1.4 billion plutonium-processing complex at SRS.

Most of the pits now are stored at Pantex, in containers that might not be suitable for long-term storage and are uncertified for shipping, the safety board noted. Efforts to develop a new container have been unsuccessful, board members said.

Although shipping concerns are not yet under the safety board's jurisdiction, they were worthy of mention, its chairman said Tuesday.

``That's not a safety problem from our point of view,'' John T. Conway said during a telephone interview. ``We were just commenting on it. Basically, this report is to get them to sit down and do some long-range planning and not just let things drift.''

The Energy Department does have some older containers certified to ship pits, but not enough for the SRS haul, said Matthew Donoghue, an Energy Department spokesman in Washington, D.C.

New containers will be needed to ship the plutonium from Pantex to SRS, Mr. Donoghue confirmed.

The board's report brings new attention to problems that should have been solved long ago, some nuclear activists said.

``It just shows that they aren't making the progress that they are supposed to,'' said Don Moniak of Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping. ``Our perception is that pit storage is in the same state it was 10 years ago.

``This functions to keep the pits here, which is not what it's supposed to do.''

Brandon Haddock covers energy issues for The Augusta Chronicle. He can be reached at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com.