COLUMBIA - A recent federal report is fueling fears South Carolina could become a permanent disposal ground for plutonium, a radioactive metal that is among the deadliest atomic materials in the world.

The U.S. Department of Energy, in a June 16 report to Congress, said it has not determined what to do with plutonium shipped from the Rocky Flats, Colo., nuclear weapons complex to the Savannah River Site.

That report said plutonium from the Rocky Flats site "currently is without a disposition path."

Energy Department officials have planned a $3.8 billion complex at SRS to turn the leftover bomb-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants near Charlotte. According to DOE plans, about 34 metric tons from federal nuclear weapons sites, including some from Rocky Flats, would be converted into fuel at the Aiken-area weapons complex.

DOE spokesman Joe Davis said late Tuesday the agency still plans to do that.

But anti-nuclear groups said the agency's own report indicates otherwise.

Greenpeace activist Tom Clements said it is further evidence the government's program to turn plutonium into nuclear fuel is unraveling.

A key House committee already has cut $165 million from the mixed oxide fuel project this year. The Energy Department has shipped about 6 metric tons of plutonium from Rocky Flats to SRS in the past two years.

"We warned that accumulating plutonium at SRS could turn the site into a de facto permanent storage facility, and that appears to be coming true," said Amanda Martin, director of the Carolina Peace Resource Center in Columbia.