Savannah River Site Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM) and Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, California) news, November 5, 2020: DOE Issues Controversial Decision to Pursue a Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) at Savannah River Site (SRS); Inadequate Environmental Review and Lack of Justification for Production of 50 or More “Pits” per Year to Modernize Entire Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Open to Legal Challenge
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a formal decision that it will pursue a massive Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) at the DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, in order to produce plutonium “pits,” or cores, for nuclear warheads. The provocative decision, which adds fuel to concerns about a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China, drew immediate opposition from public interest groups near DOE sites in South Carolina, New Mexico and California.
The issuance by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the “Record of Decision” (ROD) on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on pit production at SRS, issued in late September, officially affirms the “preferred alternative” that DOE intends to produce a minimum of 50 plutonium “pits” per year by 2030 at SRS. Also on November 5, NNSA issued an “Amended Record of Decision” (AROD) to its 2008 nation-wide Complex Transformation Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that incorporated its SRS pit-production decision. The production of pits at SRS, a totally new and challenging mission for the site, would be in order to produce pits for new-design nuclear warheads and to maintain a massive nuclear weapons stockpile of around 4000 active and reserve warheads as an integral part of the dangerous U.S. policy to prepare for full-scale nuclear war.
Full news release of SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CARES, November 5, 2020, with links to key documents:
news release on SRS pit plant ROD Nov 5 2020
Photos: Canceled, poorly constructed MOX plant at SRS, with vague plans to convert it to a Plutonium Bomb Plant, provided to SRS Watch by High Flyer