War against weapons

Activists mount protests against SRS nuclear projects

Web posted Tuesday, November 28, 2000

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By Tom Corwin
Staff Writer

To Jim Gaver, it was the scene of six protesters marching up to be arrested in front of the main administration building at Savannah River Site. For Brett Bursey, it was a grandfather with joyful tears streaming down his face as he was handcuffed during a massive demonstration.

Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the early '90s, SRS attracted large anti-nuclear protests that resulted in about 500 arrests, organizers said. Even today, with projects such as proposed mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, production, SRS remains a target of environmental and anti-nuclear activists.

Shrimp boaters approach a dock at SRS during a protest to protect seafood and tourism industries downriver. During the August 1992 protest, the activists gave a petition to Department of Energy officials. FILE/STAFF

The days of banners and chanting protesters in the fields around SRS are probably over, though some of those involved then continue to fight against nuclear waste and proliferation. Even supporters of SRS concede controversy may always crop up at the former ``bomb plant.''

It was an evolution of events in the '70s that led to the first massive Savannah River protest beginning Sept. 29, 1979, activists said. Environmental awareness and protests elsewhere raised concerns about Department of Energy facilities such as SRS. Plans to recycle plutonium in spent nuclear fuel at Allied General Nuclear Services in Barnwell near SRS attracted Mr. Bursey and other activists in 1976 to try to prevent the facility from being licensed. Eventually, the Carter administration blocked funds for Allied General, but the seed was planted for future protests against SRS, Mr. Bursey said.

``I don't know that there was an epiphany that, `Oh my goodness, there's a bomb plant in my back yard,''' said Mr. Bursey, then a member of the Columbia-based Natural Guard. ``I'm old enough to have grown up doing the drills where we hid under our desks to save us from the nuclear attack. So I've grown up in the shadow of the bomb. And I was aware that (SRS) was a bomb production facility. I think there was just a general growth and awareness about nuclear issues in the late '70s.''

Progressive musician Gil Scott-Heron brought national attention in 1976 with the song South Carolina (Barnwell) from his album, From South Africa to South Carolina.

The plans to build Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant near Waynesboro also aroused concerns among young activists, including Tom Clements, now with the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington.

``Across the country in the mid- to late '70s, there was kind of a growing grass-roots kind of thing looking at nuclear power and nuclear waste,'' Mr. Clements said. ``And that kind of expanded, in my perception at least, into looking at the Department of Energy sites themselves.''

The growing nuclear freeze movement also swept up people into protesting SRS, for a time the nation's sole producer of weapons-grade plutonium. There were scattered demonstrations and arrests in the mid- to late '70s at SRS and at two nearby facilities, Allied General and Chem-Nuclear low-level radioactive waste dump.

A South Carolina trooper reads John Penley (center) his rights as a SLED officer puts on handcuffs. Mr. Penley was one of 29 arrested at SRS during a 1991 protest. FILE/STAFF

But it is the 1979 demonstration that activists point to as the first big event at SRS. About 1,500 people gathered for the three-day protest, attending seminars, marching outside the fences of the three facilities, and chanting slogans such as ``Hell no, we won't glow!'' Singer Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash entertained the crowd of people from across the Southeast gathered at the campsite.

``The issue of nuclear waste was as paramount as the question of nuclear weapons,'' said Mr. Bursey, one of the organizers. ``I remember one of the slogans at the time was that the Savannah River Plant was a bomb being dropped on those it was intended to defend.''

On the final day, 162 people were arrested for trespassing at the three facilities, about 30 of them at SRS. But the arrests were not chaotic - the details had been worked out well in advance between protest organizers and law enforcement, with Mr. Gaver, director of the office of external affairs for Savannah River Site, serving as an intermediary.

``From the very beginning, in dealing with these various organizations, I think they right off the bat knew that we respected their right to voice their opinion and they respected our concerns about protecting the federal property and our workers, so on and so forth,'' Mr. Gaver said. ``And that's the reason we got along well.''

In fact, South Carolina law enforcement and some of the activists got to know each other on a first-name basis, Mr. Bursey said.

Dan Frazier and Rita Fellers, members of Caritas Christian Peace and Social Justice Group, take part in the Hiroshima Memorial Vigil at a Savannah River Site Gate in Jackson. About 500 people have been arrested during protests of SRS since the late 1970s. FILE/STAFF

During a large gathering on May 31, 1982, six protesters crossed a yellow line painted on the ``front lawn'' of the DOE administration building, then refused to leave. They were dubbed the ``Savannah River Six'' and were found guilty of federal trespassing charges.

When the fight turned in the late '80s to the safety of restarting the L-reactor, or the safety of the K-reactor, activists used public hearings and input on draft environmental statements to wage war. That is how the battle continues now over MOX, Mr. Clements said.

``Anyone saying that MOX is a done deal or anything at the site is a done deal, there are always political winds that can blow programs away,'' he said.

The ``Freedom of Speech area'' at the corner of Highway 125 and SRS Road No. 1 outside the plant hasn't been used in years, Mr. Gaver said. But he knows there will always be someone who objects to plans at SRS.

``The handling of radioactive materials is always going to be controversial, I think, to one degree or another,'' he said. ``That's just kind of the nature of how people feel about matters nuclear.''

Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213.

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