Numerous Comments Submitted on NNSA’s Draft EIS on the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant; Question Need for Expanding Plutonium “Pit” Production to SRS, Call for Programmatic EIS to Review Pit Need
In Bizarre and Dangerous Twist, Terminated Non-Proliferation Facility (MOX) is Proposed to become Center for U.S. Proliferation, Replacing Pits in New Nuclear Weapons and the Entire Nuclear Stockpile
Columbia, SC – Numerous public interest groups and individuals have submitted critical comments on the U.S. Department of Energy’s unjustified proposal to expand production of plutonium “pits” – the core of nuclear weapons – to DOE’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina. A flurry of comments were submitted as the comment period ended on June 2.
Comments were formally submitted on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production at Savannah River Site; Aiken, South Carolina, which was released on April 3. Various groups submitted their own hard-hitting comments and solicited comments to be submitted by their supporters.
Commenters uniformly opposed plans to expand plutonium pit production into the terminated plutonium fuel (MOX) building at SRS, to produce 50 or more pits by 2030, called for preparation of an overarching Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to review the need for pit-production expansion and impacts at a host of DOE sites. They also challenged the need for new pits for new nuclear weapons and for pit replacement in all active and reserve U.S. warheads. Additionally, groups questioned disposal of pit transuranic (plutonium) waste in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
Full SRS Watch news release of June 3, 2020 posted here: SRS Watch news on plutonium pit comments June 3 2020
Photo: Scene of the crime: Terminated plutonium fuel (MOX) plant at SRS, begging for investigations into waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement; ©High Flyer 2109