The Energy Department wants to move a lawsuit filed by environmental and anti-nuclear groups that want to halt construction of new uranium enrichment facilities to a federal court in Tennessee, according to court papers filed last week.
DOE wants the lawsuit over the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee moved to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to a Sept. 28 filing.
Plaintiffs in the suit are: the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance; Nuclear Watch New Mexico; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and four people who live near Y-12. Defendants are Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Frank Klotz, administrator of DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
The groups filed suit in July, claiming DOE had violated U.S. law by changing the design for UPF to include three small buildings instead of one large building, but then failing to produce a supplemental environmental impact statement or site-wide environmental impact statement on the updated design.
In a Sept. 28 response to the suit, DOE said it did not believes the plaintiffs were entitled to either of the two environmental reports, “or to any other form of relief.”
The Uranium Processing Facility will house will house enriched uranium processing operations in support of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Design operations are expected to be 90 percent complete this fall, after which construction can begin. The NNSA has pledged to complete the plant by 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion.
Bechtel National is building the Uranium Processing Facility under a subcontract to Y-12 prime Consolidated Nuclear Security: a consortium of which Bechtel is also a member.
Consolidated Nuclear Security has been on the job at Y-12 since 2014. The potentially 10-year deal includes a five-year base, a three-year option, and a two-year option. The contract also covers management and operations of DOE’s Pantex Plant in Texas.
