Extra waste is not issue at SRS facility

AIKEN - Savannah River Site won't be handicapped by old nuclear waste in its race to win a new project to make triggers for nuclear weapons.

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The prized, multibillion-dollar Modern Pit Facility wouldn't add an ounce to the 34 million gallons of highly radioactive waste already stored at the federal reservation, officials said Tuesday.

That keeps the project from running afoul of an Idaho federal judge's recent ruling that forces the U.S. Department of Energy to remove all of the atomic salt and sludge accumulated during decades of making nuclear weapons at SRS and two other nuclear reservations.It also helps SRS stay in the hunt against four competitors for the Modern Pit Facility, including one in President Bush's home state of Texas.

"They're totally unrelated," said Mal McKibben, the executive director of Citizens for Nuclear Technology, a pro-industry group based in Aiken. "There's not going to be any collection of liquid waste. It's not the same problem at all. There's no overlap between the pit facility and the liquid waste we've already got out there."

This doesn't mean there won't be waste created by crafting new plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons, Mr. McKibben said, but the atomic spoilage generated in the $2 billion to $4 billion factory won't be as radioactively hot as others. It will be automatically encased in stainless steel canisters and shipped to the federal Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., for processing.

Although waste from the trigger factory has a lower level of radioactivity, a considerable amount of nuclear waste still will be generated, said Tom Clements, an organizer for International Greenpeace.

Reach Jim Nesbitt at (803) 648-1394 or jim.nesbitt@augustachronicle.com.

--From the Wednesday, July 9, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle