NORTH AUGUSTA - The two sides that packed a public hearing Monday night had entirely different visions of what the proposed plutonium factory at Savannah River Site could mean for the future.
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SRS is in the running to construct a facility worth up to $4 billion that would produce plutonium pits, softball-size triggers used to detonate nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy was in town to gather opinions on an environmental impact statement it had prepared for the site - not set for construction until 2011.
Although politicians and community activists rallied behind the proposal and the big money it would mean for local economies, protesters said the plant was part of President Bush's aggressive nuclear weapons agenda and would lead to the construction of unneeded missiles and bombs.
DOE officials have said the plant is needed to replenish aging plutonium but said Monday that the plant also would produce the radioactive material for new weapons, if Congress approved it.
"It would be the manufacturing facility for that," said Mike Mitchell, the project manager for the plant, commonly called the Modern Pit Facility.
SRS is contending as a site for the facility with nuclear installations in Amarillo, Texas, Carlsbad and Los Alamos, N.M., and the Nevada Test Site.
DOE last produced plutonium in 1989 at the Rocky Flats site in Colorado, which was shut down after severely contaminating the surrounding environment. Protesters, many of whom drove in from Atlanta, argued that the government didn't have proof that weapons plutonium was aging too fast.
Officials didn't disagree, but they said preliminary experiments had shown plutonium was becoming unusable between 45 and 60 years.
"We do have limited knowledge about how plutonium ages, currently," Mr. Mitchell said.
Boosters for the site argued that SRS' safety record and immense buffer zone made it the best facility for the job. DOE officials said the facility would be complete around 2018 and would require between $200 and $300 million a year to run.
"If the MPF is built at SRS, the nation will get a safer, more reliable and more secure facility with less cost to the taxpayers," U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Monday.
Govs. Mark Sanford, of South Carolina, and Sonny Perdue, of Georgia, issued statements of support, as did U.S. senators from both states.
Beth Lavoie, of Atlanta, said the large turnout of protesters was a victory against the pit facility.
"I don't want my tax dollars going to build new nuclear weapons," she said.
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Dr. Mildred McClain, of Citizens for Environmental Justice, leads a chant to the crowd gathered to protest the plutonium-trigger facility.
ANNETTE M. DROWLETTE/STAFF
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DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham is supposed to select a site for the plutonium factory by April 2004.
YOUR SAY-SO
Comments on the proposed plutonium plant can be mailed until Aug. 5 to the National Nuclear Security Administration:
Jay Rose NA-3.6
1000 Independence Ave. S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20585
Reach Josh Gelinas at (803) 279-6895 or josh.gelinas@augustachronicle.com.
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