Both weapons grade and nonweapons grade plutonium are stored at SRS. The 13 metric tons in question are surplus nonweapons grade plutonium, about half of which came from the Colorado's Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Facility, once deemed the most dangerous storage site in the nation.

But while the cleanup of Rock Flats has nearly been completed, the Savannah River Site now is the repository for much of the nation's most dangerous nuclear waste, including not only the nonweapons grade plutonium but also 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. And no one seems to know quite what to do with it.

The material could be turned into glass, a process known as glassification, which many regard as the safest and most effective method of rendering the waste less dangerous.

Both weapons grade and non weapons grade plutonium also could be turned into mixed-oxide fuel -- or MOX -- for use in nuclear reactors. Duke Energy hopes to use MOX at either its Catawba plant on Lake Wylie or its McGuire plant in Huntersville, N.C. If Duke receives permission to use MOX, the plant would be chosen prior to the refueling in the spring of 2005.

But the MOX plan has drawbacks of its own. For one thing, the process of creating the fuel is a circuitous one. The DOE expects to ship 330 pounds of plutonium -- enough to make 50 nuclear weapons -- from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico across the country to Charleston, where it would be shipped to France and converted into MOX. Then it would be shipped back to the United States for a commercial reactor test scheduled for next year, possible in one of the Duke Energy plants.

DOE officials say the shipment will be carefully guarded along the entire route, but that does not entirely quell fears that this dangerous material will fall into the hands of terrorists.

While Duke officials attest that use of MOX in its reactors is safe, some critics worry the safety of MOX created from weapons-grade plutonium is uncertain. They point specifically to concentrations of gallium, an element added to weapons grade plutonium to help stabilize it, which can't be entirely removed during the conversion to MOX. Some studies indicate that gallium might make the reactors' zirconium tubes, into which the fuel is inserted, more brittle and subject to leakage.

In short, any plan the agency is considering for disposal of the nuclear material at the Savannah River Site is imperfect at best. If the government does not designate another long-term disposal site, such as the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, SRS could become the permanent disposal site by default.

We hope agency officials will come up with a realistic "disposition path" in the near future.

IN SUMMARY
Critics fear Savannah River site could become permanent storage area for plutonium.