South Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club: Action alert against plutonium pit production for new nuclear warheads, July 2023:
Call to Action to Oppose Plutonium “Pit” Production — Clean-up not build-up! —
at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina
Full alert posted on home page of SC Sierra Club: https://www.sierraclub.org/south-carolina
Ask the Department of Energy for a full programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for producing plutonium pits (nuclear weapons triggers) at Los Alamos and Savannah River Site in South Carolina! You can send an email to the Secretary of Energy at The.Secretary@hq.doe.gov. To send a letter online, go to https://www.energy.gov/contact-us Or you can write to: U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW Washington, DC 20585
Sample Letter
Dear Secretary Granholm:
Savannah River Site (SRS) is one of the most environmentally hazardous sites in South Carolina according to Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). The site needs to be cleaned up — not used to make plutonium pits (triggers for nuclear weapons). The K Reactor at SRS is already holding 11.5 metric tons of plutonium. In addition there are 43 remaining tanks of high level waste (HLW) at SRS as a by-product of plutonium production. Pit production for new nuclear weapons would result in significantly more plutonium being transported to SRS and yield more nuclear waste requiring disposal. We need to be protected from the effects of prior nuclear weapons materials production and the worker and public health hazards posed by pit production for new nuclear weapons.
We ask that you do a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) disclosing the hazards of producing plutonium pits for both Los Alamos and SRS and all other affected DOE sites and focus all available funds and efforts on clean-up. We also request that all efforts to convert the MOX facility to plutonium pit production be halted while the PEIS is being prepared with full public participation. SRS should not be converted from clean-up to build-up of nuclear weapons.
Sincerely,
{your name and address]
BACKGROUND
The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) are attempting to convert the purpose of the Savannah River Site (SRS) from environmental clean-up to new nuclear weapons production. The nuclear weapons part of DOE, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), will take over lead management of the SRS in 2025. In 2018, DOE and the Department of Defense revealed a plan by which both Los Alamos and SRS would become the sites where plutonium pits (triggers) for nuclear weapons would be made. The target is to produce 30 plutonium pits at LANL and 50 at SRS, by 2030, as required by Congress.
DHEC has stated that the HLW waste stored at SRS is one of the number one environmental hazards in South Carolina. Using the site to produce new plutonium pits for nuclear weapons would intensity the hazard:
- 11.5 metric tons of surplus plutonium is currently stored in the K reactor at SRS.
- In addition there is high level waste (HLW) in aging and corroding carbon-steel tanks which is threatening groundwater and nearby Savannah River. There is no site for final “disposal” of HLW which is required by law to go to a geologic repository. There is only one geologic repository in the US (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Los Alamos) and it is currently not allowed to accept HLW so the HLW remains stranded at SRS. Immobilizing the waste in glass was an effective storage method but DOE now projects delays immobilizing the waste in glass until at least 2037.
- Prior DOE plutonium pit production at Rocky Flats in Colorado was fraught with worker and public health hazards including fires and contamination causing the site to be closed in 1989. Plutonium pit production cannot be done safely in any facility and there is no rational reason to attempt to do so.
- Handling of plutonium could result in plutonium fires, inadvertent nuclear criticalities and release of plutonium, which has a 24,000-year half-life, into our environment – all risks we should avoid.
There is a lawsuit before federal court in Columbia, SC asking for a “programmatic” Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) about the plans to produce plutonium pits at SRS and Los Alamos. The lawsuit is demanding a PEIS to cover all sites impacted by the pit program. The judge has allowed the June 2021 lawsuit to continue and there could be a hearing on it late 2023. For details on US plans to expand pit production, see Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article, April 27, 2023: Dealing with a debacle: A better plan for US plutonium pit production