“The sad legacy of the Savannah River plutonium plant”

Atlanta Journal-Constituion, November 6, 2024

Op-ed by Allie Maloney, a native Georgian and graduate of the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, is a Scoville Peace Fellow for the Nuclear Information Project at Federation of American Scientists.

A Cold War-era nuclear facility poisoned Georgians, and the federal government is doing little about it as it seeks to repurpose the site.

A federal judge recently determined that the U.S. Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated environmental regulations in their plan for producing plutonium pits for nuclear weapons at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to its nuclear weapons program, the United States has a historical pattern of putting citizens at risk, contaminating the environment and wasting billions in taxpayer dollars while not giving the public the full story or the chance to have an input.

This must stop.

text of full article linked here:  article Atlanta Journal Constitution on harm of Pu and pit production PDF Nov 6 2024