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More public interest victories to add to the list of victories over 40 years!

In July 2022, there have been two significant developments at the U.S.

The new CDU-Green coalition in the North Rhine-Westphalia government has negative implications for the decade-long effort to dump German spent fuel on the Savannah River Site. That spent fuel is from the long-closed AVR gas-cooled reactor and the spent fuel is stored at Jülich.

A skeptical Congress is finally beginning to put some requirements on plutonium pit production, for new nuclear weapons, in the face of DOE’s effort to move forward without constraints. 

Zombie project stays in the crypt: The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was defunded by Congress in March 2022 and therefore killed. But some die-hard backers in DOE still keep after the reactor,

SRS Watch staff and volunteers were asked to table at the Bonnie Raitt/Lucinda Williams concerts in Charlotte, NC on June1, 2022 and in Columbia, SC on June 4,

Film about air crash over Spain, with four lost nuclear weapons – THE PLUTONIUM WASTE & CONTAMINATED EQUIPMENT WAS DUMPED in LOW-LEVEL WASTE BURIAL GROUND AT the US DOE’s SAVANNAH RIVER SITE in SOUTH CAROLINA.

Issuance by US Nuclear Regulatory Commission of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant in Columbia, SC is delayed again – to July 2022.  Final decision on operating license extension scheduled for August 2022. 

Given the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) to build plutonium pits for new, provocative nuclear weapons, an integral part of a dangerous US policy to fight a full-scale nuclear war,

Storage of plutonium “pits” (core of nuclear weapons) aren’t being stored to safety requirements at DOE’s Pantex site in Texas.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff report “Pantex Plant Pit Inventory Review”

On March 16, 2022, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released its annual plans for nuclear weapons.  Called the “Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan,” it lays out NNSA support for keeping the US on the footing to fight a full-scale nuclear war.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), which conducts oversight of DOE projects , has confirmed that plutonium from SRS was taken to the Pantex site in Texas,

 

UPDATE on March 9, 2022: Looks like the end is at hand for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR). It is due to get knocked out of the House Omnibus funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2022 funding &

SRS Watch has requested of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that key construction completion dates be released to the public about the construction of the $30+ billion Vogtle nuclear reactors by Southern Nuclear (parent of Georgia Power) in Georgia,

As anticipated, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), serving its Department of Defense (DOD) client, has instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to take steps to increase production of tritium gas in the commercial Watts Bar Nuclear Bomb Reactors (WBNBRs) in Tennessee. 

“Burned nuclear worker, troubled history raise EPA concern over SC atomic fuel plant”

Front page article in The State, Columbia, SC, December 6, 2021

linked here:   https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article256294532.html

SRS Watch report on role of the Westinghouse military-commercial dual-use facility in nuclear weapons:

Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed –

Nuclear Hotseat podcast:  “Plutonium Pits Lawsuit re: Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Los Alamos in New Mexico”

– with update on our lawsuit against DOE for failure to prepare a Programmatic EIS on expanded pit production at SRS (via the proposed Plutonium Bomb Plant) and at Los Alamos National Lab,

According to communication fro m the NRC’s Region 2 to SRS Watch, Dominion Energy’s VC Summer unit 1 reactor north of Columbia, South Carolina has been shut down due to a transformer fir report on November 17.

Article, behind paywall in The State news paper, front page Nov. 21, 2021, is based on the SRS Watch report released on November 19, 2021:  “Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed”

“Plutonium could go to New Mexico next year. It will come from the Savannah River Site” – SRS plutonium has already been shipped to WIPP in New Mexico but the amounts could ramp up,

The former CEO of SCANA, Kevin Marsh, has agreed to a 24-months prison sentence and a $5 million fine for his role in the fraudulent scheme to construct the VC Summer reactors in South Carolina.

SRS employment holds steady near 11,500 during Fiscal Year 2021, with DOE having only about 500 employees out of that figure, with most of them being contractors.

There does not appears to be a significant uptick in employment by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration for the proposed project to convert the never finished plutonium fuel (MOX) building into the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant.

“Stumbling plutonium pit project reveals DOE’s uphill climb of nuclear modernization”

Opinion piece in The Hill, by Tom Clements, Director of SRS Watch

The inability of SRS to pull off the MOX project now haunts plutonium pit plans –

US attorney details illegal acts in construction projects, sealing the fate of the “nuclear renaissance”

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, August 31, 2021

By Tom Clements | Savannah River Site Watch,

Amazingly, the NRC denies industry friendly petitions that claim “a little radiation is good for you.”

“Petition for Rulemaking; Denial: Linear No-Threshold Model and Standards for Protection Against Radiation”

Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

NRC inspection report of the Nuclear Ship Savannah, August 10, 2021:

“U.S. Department of Transportation, N.S. Savannah – NRC Inspection Report 05000238/2021001”

https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML21222A096

“On July 12,

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has posted updates, with many photos, on construction of two massive 32-million-gallon concrete “tanks” to hold redefined high-level nuclear waste processed via the new Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) from the SRS high-level waste tanks;

Massive construction crane available! Start the bidding! Could be featured in a memorial to the two large, failed nuclear construction projects in the US: Vogtle in Georgia &

SRS Watch news, July 30, 2021:  Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel Plant in Columbia, South Carolina Quietly Released by Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Groundwater Contamination Issues and Ever-Present Accident Threat Don’t Justify 40-Year License Extension 

Draft EIS Glosses Over Current Contamination and Ignores Future Impacts;

“DEFENDANT MARSH’S MOTION FOR AN EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE OBJECTIONS TO THE PRESENTENCE INVESTIGATION REPORT”

Request granted by court: “WHEREFORE the Defendant, Kevin Marsh, respectfully moves this Court for an order extending the deadline in which he can file objections to the Presentence Investigation Report until August 2,

Feds face suit over plan to build atomic weapons component factory in SC

The State, Columbia, South Carolina, June 29, 2021

https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article252441373.html