SC TO ASK FOR WASTE DETERMINATION FOR JAPANESE PLUTONIUM

South Carolina plans to pressure the Department of Energy to complete a waste determination for hundreds of kilograms of plutonium from Japan if it is sent to the Savannah River Site. The Obama Administration earlier this week announced plans to send the material to a “secure facility” in the United States for processing in preparation for disposal. “It is not known whether DOE is planning to ship plutonium from Japan to SRS. [South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control] will press DOE to make a waste determination for the Japanese plutonium prior to any planned shipment to SRS,” South Carolina Attorney General spokesman Mark Plowden said in a written response yesterday.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has not provided information on where the plutonium will be processed. "The material was transferred to secure facilities in the United States where it will be stored until it can be permanently dispositioned. For security reasons, we can not disclose the location of the final destination. The final determination of where the material will be processed is yet to be decided," NNSA spokeswoman Keri Fulton said in a written response.  

Some plutonium recently been processed at Savannah River’s H-Canyon facility and disposed of at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, but that repository is now shut down indefinitely after a radiation release. This week DOE Savannah River Manager Dave Moody said a pathway hadn’t been finalized on the Japanese material. “We haven’t received a schedule on that as of yet,” Moody said at a Citizen’s Advisory Board Meeting, according to the Aiken Standard. “Much of that material is intended for the WIPP and we look forward to getting that facility back up and running so we can continue making shipments of materials to the plant.”