But the federal agency has said it has no plans to consolidate plutonium at the former nuclear weapons complex near Aiken. The DOE did say it has set up a committee to study plutonium disposition and consolidation as well as ensure cleanup plans at nuclear facilities across the country are consistent with consolidation plans.
The agency has about 50 metric tons of plutonium that is no longer needed for nuclear weapons.
SRS already has received nearly 1,900 containers of plutonium from the Rocky Flats site in Colorado, and stabilization and packaging is still ongoing at other DOE sites. The agency estimated it will have nearly 5,700 plutonium storage containers that could eventually be shipped to SRS.
The Government Accountability Office report also said that one-fifth of the plutonium from the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington can't be shipped to SRS because the plutonium is not in a form SRS planned to store. Continued storage at Hanford could cost an additional $85 million each year and threaten that site's cleanup, according to the report.
But the DOE emphasized it hasn't said for sure if the plutonium will be consolidated at SRS.
"We recognize that a final decision to consolidate plutonium has not been made," the report said. "However, it is important to note ... that both Hanfords accelerated cleanup plan and SRS's storage plan assumed that DOEs surplus plutonium would be consolidated at SRS and that both plans were approved by DOE headquarters without resolving conflicts between them."
A spokesman for Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said the study, which was conducted for a year beginning in June 2004, broke no new ground. A defense bill in 2002, sponsored by Graham and former Sen. Strom Thurmond, prevents any plutonium from being permanently stored at SRS, Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said.
But Tom Clements, an independent nuclear consultant formerly of Greenpeace, said the DOE needs to have a plan to manage, consolidate or dispose of the excess plutonium.
"Congress is very late in beginning serious oversight of this program. It has already been a decade since the program to dispose of surplus weapons plutonium began and DOE sill hasn't developed a workable plan to handle this deadly material," he said. "Lack of such a plan, which should have been developed years ago, means a tremendous waste of taxpayer money and a continued threat to public health and safety."
