Latest News

“Justice Prevails: A Grassroots Victory in the Fight against Nuclear Weapons Proliferation”

By Aspen Coriz-Romero, on National Priorities Project website, March 12, 2025

About our federal lawsuit victory against plutonium “pit”

“Hot Plutonium Pit Bomb Redux”

CounterPunch, January 31, 2025

Last week U.S. District Judge Mary Lewis Geiger, South Carolina, faulted the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Agency for ignoring the National Environmental Protection Act and rushing plans to fabricate plutonium pit bombs at Savannah River Site,

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent agency that provides oversight of DOE activities, notes more problems at the SRS tritium-handling facilities.  SRS process and package all tritium,

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JIMMY CARTER: Nuke Watchdog Commemorations

January 2, 2025

https://beyondnuclear.org/jimmy-carter-1924-2024-nuke-watchdog-commemorations/

[White House Oval Office photograph, signed by President Carter (October 1,

Thank you, Jimmy Carter, for your monumental environmental and non-proliferation decision in 1977!  South Carolina and the nation owe you a debt of gratitude.

If not for President Carter’s declaration against the Barnwell spent fuel reprocessing plant (Allied General Nuclear Services),

We’re very honored to have been nominated by the Arms Control Association in Washington, DC for “Arms Control Person(s) of the Year,” along with fellow groups with which we are working!

Statement of Tom Clements, Director SRS Watch, on Nomination of Chris Wright as DOE Secretary

November 19, 2024

Based on the video I have seen of Mr.

DOE’s 2037 Deadlines for SRS: Realistic or Illusory?

by Don Moniak, The Aiken Chronicles, November 11, 2024

“The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) has two major milestones to achieve by 2037.

“The sad legacy of the Savannah River plutonium plant”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 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,

Photo: Cover of document obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by SRS Watch and other groups with so many pages blacked out so as to coverup need for research on pit aging.

“NNSA Loses Environmental Regulation Lawsuit”

A U.S. District Court judge ruled on Sept. 30 that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to conduct a proper analysis of alternatives that takes into consideration environmental impacts after significantly modifying plans for plutonium pit production in 2018.

Westinghouse Official to be Sentenced on November 20 for Role in South Carolina Nuclear Reactor Construction Debacle at V.C. Summer Site

Columbia, SC – After various delays,

Drones spotted over US nuclear reactors in 2022, 2023 and 2024 – US Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists in response to Freedom of Information Act request

These lists are interesting but don’t reveal if the drones flights were by hobbyists or something else.

“Plutonium just had a bad day in court”

“In a major decision whose consequences are still being assessed, a federal judge declared that plutonium pit production — one ingredient in the U.S.

A faulty idea that must be rejected: Restart of the VC Summer nuclear reactor construction boondoggle

A cursory “report” by the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council (NAC) –

The Department of Energy’s SRS Citizens Advisory Board (SRS CAB) is to meet on September 16 & 17 at the Hipp-Close Building, 8th Floor at the University of South Carolina in Columbia,

The U.S. Department of Energy is throwing a huge amount of tax payer money at so-called “advanced reactors,” hoping something will stick.  Nothing so far looks promising but one project,

“Another reason to cancel the Sentinel missile: the rising cost of its nuclear warhead” – at Savannah River Site & Los Alamos National Lab

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,  by Stephen Young (Union of Concerned Scientists),

This is what failure looks like. Photo by High Flyer – of canceled, in 2017 , VC Summer nuclear reactor units 2 & 3 in foreground and unit 1 (operating) by lake in background.

Nuclear Weapons at Any Price? Congress Should Say No
Scientific American, May 13, 2024, By Sharon K. Weiner

Costs are skyrocketing to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Instead of turning a blind eye,

SRS Watch had a wonderful experience interacting with the public at a stupendous Bonnie Raitt concert on May 9 in North Charleston, SC.

We didn’t get back stage this time but we got a virtual hug and Bonnie gave us a shout from the stage.

SRS Watch in Ploughshares Nuke Talk podcast, posted on May 1, 2024

“Atomic Assembly: Savannah River Site, South Carolina”

If you’re interested in the history of the Savannah River Site,

The Barnwell reprocessing plant in South Carolina, adjacent to the Savannah River Site, thankfully never operated, thus sparing South Carolina huge volumes of highly radioactive nuclear waste and separated weapon-usable plutonium.

Photo: Unit 3 at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle, Georgia, started operation in August 2023; cover photo: units 3 and 4 (unit 4 is due to start operation in the 2nd quarter 2024,

Was the confused orange candidate raising the specter of South Carolina being hit by a massive nuclear weapon – from whom? – due to the DOE’s Savannah River Site being located here?

Materials from Japan containing significant amounts of weapon-grade plutonium and bomb-grade uranium – so-called Fast Critical Assemblies (FCAs) – were shipped by sea to the Savannah River Site,

Plutonium waste from Palomares, Spain to US? GAO report, Jan. 31, 2024 – “Nuclear Waste: Changing Conditions May Affect Future Management of Contamination Deposited Abroad During U.S. Cold War Activities”

“Appalling” and “Abysmal”

By Don Moniak, Aiken County, South Carolina – in The Aiken Chronicles, January 22, 2024

How the Department of Energy addressed Governor McMaster’s and Attorney General Alan Wilson’s conflicting and sometimes harsh opinions regarding the future of surplus plutonium.

See links below to the Final EIS on Surplus Plutonium Disposition and to the Federal Register notice about that (January 19, 2024).  SRS could well be processing 34 metric tons (plus another 6 MT already addressed = 40 MT) of plutonium into transuranic waste (TRU) to be dumped in the Waste Isolation Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. 

“Cold War nuclear waste is prioritized at Carlsbad-area repository. How much is there?”

article in Carlsbad Current Argus, Carlsbad, New Mexico, December 28 2023; with SRS Watch Director Tom Clements

Concerns were raised by government watchdog groups for a plan to dispose of Cold War nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository in southeast New Mexico,