Public Interest Group Requests DOE Prepare “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” on Plutonium Disposition, in Support of Recommendation by National Academies of Sciences Panel
Plutonium Disposition via “Dilute & Dispose” to Bring at Least 22.5 Metric Tons More of Plutonium to Savannah River Site, On Top of 11.5 MT of Pu Already at SRS, Must Not be Stranded if Project Changes
Link to SRS Watch’s August 11 Letter to DOE on Plutonium Disposition and Need for PEIS
Columbia, SC – The U.S. Department of Energy must prepare an overarching environmental analysis of slow-moving plans to process and dispose of surplus weapons plutonium at Savannah River Site and other DOE sites, according to a request made by Savanna River Site Watch, a public interest group providing oversight of SRS and DOE.
The August 11, 2020 letter to key DOE officials highlights reasons for preparation of a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statements” (PEIS) on plutonium disposition and affirmed support for a recent recommendation by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences (NAS). A PEIS, prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act, would review the need for the project, assess DOE system-wide plutonium-disposition impacts and would analyze various sites to be utilized, including SRS, Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and the Pantex site in Texas (where more than 15,000 plutonium pits removed from weapons are stored).
The NAS panel recommended on April 30, 2020 in a document entitled Review of the Department of Energy’s Plans for Disposal of Surplus Plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that “The Department of Energy should implement a new comprehensive programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to consider fully the environmental impacts of the total diluted surplus plutonium transuranic (DSP-TRU) waste inventory (up to an additional 48.2 MT) targeted for dilution at the Savannah River Site and disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).” In its letter, SRS Watch affirmed the recommendation of the NAS panel, which SRS Watch believes that DOE is considering.
“DOE can now put plutonium management on a better track by agreeing to prepare a Programmatic EIS on its slow-moving and ill-defined plutonium-disposition plan,” said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch. “While DOE is performing poorly in managing plutonium, one thing is very clear: the citizens of South Carolina do not want another gram of plutonium brought in to SRS until the 11.5 metric tons stored at the site are removed and the PEIS would have to address that controversial matter,” said Clements.
Currently, DOE is pursuing a process called “dilute and dispose,” whereby an initial 6 metric tons of plutonium would be mixed with a secret inert material (previously called “stardust”) at SRS, for disposal as transuranic waste in the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. DOE has said that it would dispose of a minimum of 34 MT of plutonium via “dilute and dispose” (D&D) yet environmental analysis of that option for such a large amount of plutonium is lacking. SRS already stores 11.5 MT of plutonium in the old K-Reactor and some of that material is slowly being processed via D&D. (See SRS Watch letter for details about the D&D processing rate.)
Full SRS Watch news release of August 12, 202 linked here: SRS Watch news on plutonium disposition PEIS request August 12 2020
Photo: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) representatives observe plutonium disposal containers in E-Area at SRS