The COVID-19 scare that shut down construction of the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina lasted about two weeks, with work resuming in mid-April, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday evening.
“On April 6, an SPD [Surplus Plutonium Disposition] construction worker called in sick. In an abundance of caution, construction was suspended the same day,” a spokesperson for agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., said by email. “The worker was tested for COVID-19 and was negative. Construction work resumed on April 20.”
The independent federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) first disclosed the work stoppage at the future plutonium-disposal site at Savannah River’s K-Area. In a weekly site report, the board reported that contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions halted work after some personnel “raised concerns” about the deemed-essential facility’s ongoing construction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Savannah River Site overall has had 13 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the virus hit U.S. shores. The NNSA typically discloses only confirmed cases, but the Surplus Plutonium Disposition episode illustrates how the pandemic response can alter work schedules unexpectedly, even if the virus isn’t detected at a specific facility.
The NNSA’s multi-site Surplus Plutonium Disposition program is intended to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-usable material that was originally to be converted into commercial reactor fuel using the now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River.
Savannah River’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition project is the South Carolina site’s part of that work, which calls for blending chemically weakened plutonium oxide with an inert material called stardust, then sending the resulting mixture to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., to be buried forever, deep underground.
The Savannah River facility is due to be completed in 2028 and operate into the 2040s.
