Environmentalists suing the federal government got two more weeks to file briefs in their case about a planned South Carolina plutonium pit factory, according to an order filed late last week.
The case, involving the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plans to make nuclear weapon first-stage cores in South Carolina and New Mexico, has been pending for nearly three years.
In a March 28 scheduling order, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina has now warned everyone involved that it wants no more delays.
“The Court is unlikely to grant any further extensions absent a strong showing of extraordinary circumstances,” reads a scheduling order published March 28.
In 2021, a coalition of environmental groups sued the Department of Energy, arguing that the NNSA needs to conduct a lengthy environmental review of its planned plutonium pit production enterprise, which will feature factories at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
In February at the Exchange Monitor’s annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington, Officials from Los Alamos said they could begin making war-usable pits for W87-1 warheads this year. The Savannah River Plutonium Pit Production Facility might not come online until some time next decade, the NNSA has said, including in the fiscal year 2025 budget request it released in March.
