THESE UNITED STATES are best served by taking a national view on certain issues — by looking at the 50 states and their people as a whole, and determining what is best for the health, strength and security of our nation. Certainly, the national defense is paramount among those issues. We have long believed that Aiken’s Savannah River Site plays a key role in that defense. We see the potential for new missions at SRS, including the possibility of reprocessing excess defense stores into energy. However, whatever happens on the munitions and energy front, one thing cannot be denied. A national, long-term examination leads to the inescapable conclusion that Savannah River Site is not the best long-term repository for any of our nation’s high-level radioactive waste.

SRS is dangerously close to natural resources that make it a poor choice for permanent waste storage. It is near important water sources, the Tuscaloosa aquifer and the Savannah River. The site sits at the edge of a seismic fault, and the threat of future earthquakes along this fault is real. Populated areas, including Aiken and Augusta, are nearby. Meanwhile, 37 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste remain housed in aging tanks at SRS.

For more than 20 years, national law has specified that the waste will be solidified and moved to a permanent, deep geologic repository. However, politics, the high cost and some interest group objections have blocked the opening of such a facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. These delays are short-sighted national policy, as they leave high-level waste in temporary, more ecologically fragile storage. Moving forward with this cleanup process must be a top national priority.

Recently, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a measure that he says will help. The provision in a defense spending bill allows for removal of 99 percent of the waste at SRS to begin. Sen. Graham says the plan — which was approved in the Senate by the narrowest possible margin — moves cleanup efforts ahead by 23 years and saves taxpayers $16 million. We believe Sen. Graham is sincere in his desire to break the logjam that has put cleanup efforts at SRS at a standstill. He is to be commended for his efforts to move the process forward.

Nonetheless, we share the concerns of those such as U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., and former President Jimmy Carter, who object to part of the Graham provision. That would allow the remaining 1 percent of the high-level radioactive waste to remain at SRS permanently. The material would stay at the bottom of those aging tanks, covered by grout. By volume, the radioactivity in the material which would remain is more potent than that which would be taken away. And, there is simply no way to safely predict the long-term security of material treated and left behind in this fashion.

We call upon the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Energy to move ahead with the funding and authorizations necessary to begin the process of solidifying and moving high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain. The truth is that they can do that anytime they muster the will to do so, with or without a provision leaving some waste at SRS forever. It is long past time, for the good of our entire nation, to get moving on the process of constructing and operating a permanent, national disposal site.