SRS Watch news release – January 7, 2015
FOIA Documents Reveal Savannah River Site (SRS) Forced by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to Halt Promotion of “Small Modular Reactors” (SMRs) with Improperly Diverted Clean-Up Funds
Failure of SRS and Contractors to Secure SMR Funding Doomed “Enterprise SRS” as a “Vision” for Future of SRS
Indications are that the diverted funds in question have not been reimbursued into the SRS clean-up fund. If you have information about that please contact SRS Watch at srswatch@gmail.com and/or contact the DOE’s Inspector General’s hotline.
Columbia, SC – Documents obtained by Savannah River Site Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) was halted from diverting clean-up funds into promotion of “small modular reactors” (SMRs). The improper use of clean-up funds was the beginning of the demise of “Enterprise SRS,” the project which had based future of SRS on highly speculative “small modular reactors,” according to the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch (SRS Watch).
The documents confirm that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed SRS in September 2012 to stop the main site contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), from improperly spending clean-up funds on SMR promotion. The action resulted in almost $750,000 of clean-up funding via DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) being identified as being improperly used on SMRs from the “General and Administrative” (GA) account administered by SRNS.