Environmentalists and some politicians have condemned the plan because it would leave highly radioactive sludge in dozens of underground storage tanks -- some of which have sprung leaks -- instead of sending it to a permanent repository in Nevada, as required by a 1982 law.

"We want to show that our plan is safe," said Fran Poda, spokeswoman for the Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which runs SRS for the Energy Department.

About 37 million gallons of radioactive waste -- leftovers from years of making ingredients for nuclear bombs -- are stored in 49 underground tanks at SRS. A report last week said some of the most recent problems occurred in 2001, when 92 gallons of radioactive waste leaked into a containment area. Energy Department officials say the government does not know of any tanks leaking now.

Plans call for most of the liquid waste, which constitutes the vast majority of the waste volume, to be immobilized by mixing it with molten glass and then allowing it to solidify. But the DOE plans to leave highly radioactive sludge processed from the waste in the tanks, which would be filled with concrete.

Environmentalists were outraged last year when the DOE proposed reclassifying the sludge as low-level waste, effectively allowing the material to remain at SRS. The government said the reclassification would save $16 billion in cleanup costs and hasten the SRS cleanup by 23 years. The Natural Resources Defense Council sued the government, and a federal judge ruled that the DOE would violate federal law if it reclassified the waste and failed to move it. To get around the ruling, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), on behalf of the agency, introduced a bill to keep the sludge at SRS. A Senate committee then made it part of the defense spending bill.

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