Secretive Sale of Surplus MOX Equipment by NNSA Perpetuates Cover-Up of Bungled MOX Project, Exposes Lack of Accountability to Taxpayers for Money Wasted on Construction and Equipment
MOX Project Wasted Vast Sums of Money on Stockpiling Huge Amounts of Equipment that Project Managers Knew would be Obsolete when the Project Began Operation – Investigations Needed
Columbia, SC – The announced sale of surplus equipment from the failed plutonium fuel (MOX) project at the Savannah River Site exposes the lack of financial and managerial accountability with the project, according to the non-profit public-interest group conducting public interest oversight of the site.
With no accounting to the public about details of the sale of equipment they own, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration has hired two sales firms to sell the equipment stored in an off-site warehouse in Barnwell, South Carolina. (See sales company news releases in “notes” below. See photos of the facility on the SRS Watch website, ©SRS Watch: https://srswatch.org/savannah-river-site-watch-photos/) It is unknown where proceeds from the sale will go.
A review of the surplus property posted on the website of one of the sales companies reveals a host of things are being offered at rock-bottom, give-away prices: transformers, switchboards, control panels, electrical supplies, HVAC equipment, valves and an assortment of other materials. But no plutonium gloveboxes, furnaces to produce plutonium oxide or plutonium pellet presses seem to be offered for sale.
Savannah River Site Watch contends that the secretive sale of the equipment stored in a secure warehouse, about which the public knows little, only continues NNSA’s needless and inexplicable secrecy which has shielded the bungled MOX project of proper oversight from inception to termination.
The sale involves equipment in MOX equipment “warehouse #3” located off-site on Joey Zorn Boulevard in Barnwell, SC. Other MOX warehouses and laydown yards are on SRS proper but it is believed that it is easier to dispose of equipment from the off-site location, as there is no passage through the SRS perimeter gates.
full SRS Watch news release posted here: Savannah River Site Watch news on MOX eqip sale June 16 2020