Challenges Facing Host of Savannah River Site Projects in 2021; SRS Must Strive to Better Serve Public
Proposed and Unjustified SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP), to Fill the Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Money Hole, to be Opposed and Formally Reviewed, Termination Possible
Listing of challenges facing SRS in 2021, with discussion, posted here: SRS Watch on SRS issues in 2021 January 14 2021
Citizen engagement on projects at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site began in earnest in the mid-1970s. Despite misguided efforts by DOE and its contractors, a host of ill-conceived projects have been terminated, with great cost savings to the tax payer, avoided waste burden at the site and strengthened national security. (See SRS Watch list of impressive public victories from the 1970s through 2020.) Such successes can be repeated in 2021.
As we enter 2021, numerous programs at SRS face scrutiny as a new Congress takes over and a new administration implements new policies. The lack of openness by DOE and the hostile attitude toward the public, long a debilitating problem with DOE, again will face challenges by public interest groups. Of primary importance, DOE and SRS must operate in a more democratic and transparent manner. Savannah River Site Watch, along with colleague groups near DOE sites in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, will renew efforts to hold DOE accountable and will work with new DOE officials in the development of sound policies.
Here’s a snapshot of some issues facing the Savannah River Site and DOE in 2021 – for the 4-page discussion of these issues click on this link to the SRS Watch website:
1. Proposed, unjustified SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) will get a thorough review in 2021.
2. MOX investigations still urgently needed.
3. New review of nuclear weapons and support facilities will be conducted.
4. Processing of radioactive tritium gas at SRS, for nuclear weapons, will increase in 2021, bringing risks.
5. Processing at SRS of surplus plutonium for disposal as waste is now undergoing a review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
6. Plutonium fuel fabrication at SRS for the proposed Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) could bring 30 metric tons of plutonium to SRS.
7. Questions about the impacts of a recent cyberattack on DOE have gone unanswered by SRS and DOE headquarters.
8. SRS has failed to clarify the status of start-up of the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), to process high-level nuclear waste out of the SRS tanks.
9. Plans to import and dump German highly radioactive spent fuel at SRS are in trouble but remain alive and must be terminated.
10. Clean-up of nuclear and chemical waste at SRS remains the king of employment.
11. Efforts to dump 1300 vitrified high-level waste canisters by 2029 as low-level waste or transuranic waste is misguide and will fail.
12. Spent fuel from Finnish research reactor is likely now on its way from Finland to the Idaho National Lab, via the port of Savannah, Georgia.
13. Finally and significantly, DOE and SRS have miserably failed in providing the public with information and responding to public requests.
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EIN Newswire version of SRS Watch news release:
“Challenges Facing Host of Savannah River Site Projects in 2021; DOE Must Strive for More Openness, Better Outreach”