Plutonium in southeastern news (3 articles)

[Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Las Vegas Sun

April 22, 2002 

Troopers Prepare to Block Plutonium



NEW ELLENTON, S.C.- State law enforcement officers practiced blocking

weapons-grade plutonium from entering South Carolina, and Gov. Jim

Hodges

said Monday he would do "whatever it takes" to stop the shipments. 



Hodges, who is locked in a dispute with the Department of Energy over

the shipments from Colorado, ordered the practice drill for about three

dozen state troopers and transport police officers. Hodges has

threatened to lie down in the road if necessary to block the shipments. 



As part of the drill, patrol cars blocked a four-lane road near the

Savannah River Site, about 10 miles from the Georgia state line.

Officers convinced the driver of the vehicle escorting a state-owned

tractor-trailer to turn around. 



Officials said they didn't know whether it would be that easy when

trucks carrying plutonium and escorted by armed federal officers make

the same attempted entrance. Energy officials have said shipments could

begin by May 15. 



Hodges, a Democrat up for re-election this year, said the state will do

"whatever it takes" to keep the plutonium shipments out unless the

Energy Department signs an agreement that the plutonium won't stay in

the state. 



The Energy Department plans to reprocess the plutonium into fuel to be

used in commercial nuclear reactors.



-----



Knoxville News-Sentinel

Plutonium route could cross state

Official confident of system if it does

By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer

April 24, 2002



A top state official Tuesday refused to confirm or deny whether

controversial shipments of plutonium will pass through Tennessee next

month, but he said he wouldn't be unduly concerned if they did. 



"We believe that we have a level of protection and inspection that is

appropriate to deal with this," said Justin Wilson, policy deputy to

Gov. Don Sundquist. 



"There is a lot of hazardous material that travels on our highways and

our railways every day. The most common is gasoline. Needless to say we

are concerned about the safety of our highways and our citizens. ... Any

shipment of nuclear materials goes through a rigorous procedure at our

border, and the movement is closely monitored. We don't believe there is

any greater risk from this than there would be a truck full of gasoline

- and probably less." 



The U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship an unspecified amount of

weapons-grade plutonium from Colorado to the agency's Savannah River

Site in South Carolina, where it would be reprocessed for use as

commercial nuclear

fuel. 



Those federal plans, however, have set up a confrontation with South

Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat who opposes the nuclear shipments

and has promised to do everything possible - including lying down in the

road - to

block them.  



One possible route from Colorado to South Carolina would involve

Interstate 40, which traverses Tennessee's entire length west to east. 



The exact dates of the shipments and the planned route to Savannah River

(near the South Carolina-Georgia border) have not been disclosed by DOE,

although the agency has acknowledged the shipments of radioactive

material could begin by May 15. 



State troopers and other police officers in South Carolina practiced

drills earlier this week on ways to halt trucks bound for the Savannah

River nuclear complex. 



Wilson declined to comment on whether DOE has been in touch with

Tennessee officials to discuss the plans for transporting plutonium. Nor

would he say if he knew when the shipments are scheduled. 



The governor's deputy noted that Tennessee has had its own disagreements

with DOE regarding nuclear shipments to Oak Ridge. On several occasions,

the state has refused to let DOE bring out-of-state wastes to Oak Ridge

to burn

in the toxic-waste incinerator there. 



Those disagreements, however, have never become as confrontational as

the situation in South Carolina. 



"I try to avoid confrontational stands," Wilson said. "I don't want to

see Governor Sundquist lying down in the road or standing in the

schoolhouse door." 



Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net.



-----



SRS considered to help make nuclear weapons

U.S. plan for new mission is only on drawing board, and depends on

change in world situation

By SAMMY FRETWELL, Staff Writer, The State (Columbia, SC)

Posted on Tue, Apr. 23, 2002



The Savannah River Site is under consideration by the federal government

for a factory to make key components of atomic weapons, records show.



SRS would be part of a "large-scale" plutonium pit production system

that would begin work by 2018, according to a 2001 high-level waste

system plan.



The federal document says SRS would assemble nuclear components for

plutonium pits certified for use in war. The plutonium pit manufacturing

mission would create up to 33,600 gallons of high-level nuclear waste

annually, the report said.



Several details about the proposal were unavailable Monday, including

who must approve the factory and what would happen to the nuclear waste.



If the factory is built, it would mark a new era in production of atomic

weapons grade materials at SRS. The site formerly produced plutonium

during the Cold War.



Department of Energy spokesman Joe Davis and U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham,

R-S.C., said the production plant would only be built if the U.S. needed

to begin large-scale production of nuclear weapons.



At this point, Graham said that is unlikely.



The U.S. is reducing the number of nuclear warheads, and the federal

government already is committed to a pit production facility at Los

Alamos, N.M, he said.  That plant could produce smaller amounts of

plutonium pits, said Graham, whose district includes SRS.



Plutonium pits are spherical, metallic objects needed for atomic

weapons.



"In case there is a need to ramp up in a major way, a place like

Savannah River would be more capable" of producing large-scale weapons

components than Los Alamos, Graham said. "But for this to happen, the

whole world situation would have to change. The world situation now is

we are reducing the number of warheads."



Still, anti-nuclear activist Tom Clements said the Department of

Energy's interest in SRS for plutonium pit production shows it wants to

concentrate much of the government's future plutonium work in South

Carolina.



The DOE is embroiled in a debate with Gov. Jim Hodges over federal plans

to store and process excess plutonium so that some of it can't be used

for nuclear bombs. Hodges wants a court-approved, federal guarantee the

material will be shipped out of South Carolina if a processing plant

doesn't get built, as planned by the DOE.



But the fuel processing plant would take only about 34 metric tons of

excess plutonium out of a national stockpile of about 100 metric tons,

Clements and DOE officials acknowledged.



That leaves plenty of material available for use in building new nuclear

weapons, said Clements, a senior campaigner with the Greenpeace

environmental group.



"There is the risk that once Savannah River Site becomes the plutonium

storage site, then the possibility of it becoming the site for the new

bomb factory is going to be much easier for DOE to carry out," Clements

said.



Without mentioning SRS specifically, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham

told the House Armed Services Committee last month that the country

needs a

contingency plan for a modern plutonium pit production facility. Plans

for the facility "will provide the nation with the means to respond to

new, unexpected or emerging threats in a timely manner," he said.



Plutonium pits were formerly made at the Rocky Flats nuclear facility in

Colorado with plutonium that came from SRS. Rocky Flats stopped

producing pits in 1989 and environmental crews are cleaning up the site.



Excess plutonium left at Rocky Flats is destined for use in mixed oxide

fuel (MOX) to be made at SRS. If a new pit production plant were built

at SRS, it would replace the process that occurred at Rocky Flats during

the Cold War, according to plans.



Jay Reiff, a spokesman for Hodges, said the governor isn't necessarily

opposed to a new plutonium pit production factory at SRS. But the

governor wants to make sure any of the toxic metal that comes here also

leaves the state in some form.



The governor's office is "familiar with the proposed plans, but that is

all speculative at this point," Reiff said of the plutonium pit

proposal. "The governor just wants to ensure this state is not a

permanent storage area for weapons grade plutonium."



A small-scale plutonium pit production plant at the Los Alamos nuclear

site in New Mexico wouldn't be enough to handle the load if the nation

needed to build up its nuclear arsenal substantially, records show.



A 1997 DOE report stamped "not for public dissemination" said the

Savannah River Site and a nuclear site at Oak Ridge, Tenn., provided the

best options for a modern pit production system. The two facilities

would work in combination to make the plutonium pits, according to the

document obtained by The State.



The report said intact plutonium pits would be shipped to SRS from the

Pantex nuclear site in Texas.



Once in South Carolina, SRS would disassemble the pits and recast them.

Pit castings would then be shipped to Oak Ridge for finishing before

being shipped back to Pantex. Leftover residues from Oak Ridge would be

sent to SRS, the document said.



The report said SRS officials aggressively pursued the new mission. "SRS

takes the position that, given enough money, anything can be

accomplished in five years," the report said.



A second, less desirable proposal would be to have SRS do all the work,

rather than doing so in combination with Oak Ridge, records show.



"SRS is the only technically feasible single-site option," the report

said.



http://www.thestate.com 



-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

We've moved!  Please note our new address:

102 Robertsville Road, Suite B, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

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