The federal environmental lawsuit brought by public interest groups asking for the court to order DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to prepare a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” (PEIS) on all aspects of plutonium pit production and radioactive waste disposal is on a new schedule, as issued by the judge in Columbia South Carolina on December 19, 2023.
The lawsuit brought by Savannah River Site Watch (Columbia, SC), Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM) and Tri-Vally CAREs (Livermore, CA) was initially failed in June 2021. The groups have been granted “standing” by the court and thus the case proceeds.
The new schedule – posted here: court order Dec 18 2023 – stipulates that the parties will mediate over documents to be allowed into the “administrative record” and set new filing dates in 2024:
“The parties agree to meet and confer to discuss the outstanding issues in this case.
If following the meet-and-confer(s), the parties believe a formal mediation would
be useful, they will schedule and complete a mediation on or before February 1,
2024;
• Plaintiffs’ Opening Brief, as well as a Joint Statement of Stipulated Facts, will be
due on March 1, 2024;
• Defendants’ Response Brief will be due on April 1, 2024;
• Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief will be due on April 23, 2024; and
• Defendants’ Sur-Reply will be due on May 14, 2024.”
The group have made a strong case that not all environmental impacts of pit production, including transportation, plutonium handling and processing, disposal of associated plutonium waste (transuranic waste, TRU) in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), low-level nuclear waste disposal at DOE or commercial sites and environmental justice have been properly analyzed. Only an overarching PEIS can review all aspects of such impacts, with more specific impact assessments likely be required. Until DOE conforms with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), construction of pit plants or preparation for them at Savannah River Site and Los Alamos must be put on hold.
DOE announced the 2-track pit production plan in 2018, sat which time it should have announced a PEIS would have been prepared. DOE has thus had more than ample time to prepare the PEIS, which would require public input. The proposed pit plants would manufacture plutonium pits, the core of all US nuclear warheads, for new and refurbished nuclear weapons.
See SRS Watch post of October 19, 2023 on the pit lawsuit: https://srswatch.org/lawyers-for-srs-watch-allies-deal-blow-to-doe-challenge-to-admission-of-key-documents-in-federal-lawsuit-concerning-new-plutonium-pits-cores-for-new-nuclear-warheads/
See SRS Watch post of June 10, 2023 2023 about how DOE is dragging its feet in response to various FOIA requests on pit aging – this is sadly still the case: https://srswatch.org/in-response-to-nnsas-refusal-to-release-information-on-plutonium-pit-aging-srs-watch-files-foia-requests/
SRS Watch stands firm against new pit production and demands that NNSA immediately release information about plutonium pit aging and pit reuse, something it has staunchly refused to do. Ya gotta wonder why not. Just what are they hiding?
Update, January 30, 2024: Court-ordered mediation between plaintiffs and DOJ/NNSA concerning both documents in the “administrative record” and overall case demanding a Programmatic EIS (PEIS) on pit production was held on January 25, 2024. The mediation did not yield results and the case, now over 2.5 years old, continues. From top of our complaint in court document system (PACER):
U.S. District Court
District of South Carolina (Aiken)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:21-cv-01942-MGL
| Savannah River Site Watch et al v. United States Department of Energy et al Assigned to: Honorable Mary Geiger Lewis Cause: 42:4321 Review of Agency Action-EnvironmentDate Filed: 06/29/2021 |