Plutonium plan for S.C. spurs battle

COLUMBIA — Two groups that oppose an Energy Department plan to send more plutonium to South Carolina for processing have filed a petition with a federal licensing board, hoping to halt construction of a plant at the Savannah River nuclear complex.

The Energy Department said last month it plans to send plutonium in Washington state and at research laboratories in New Mexico and California to the Savannah River complex near Aiken to improve security and reduce storage costs.

The plan calls for the plutonium to be either converted into a mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, for use at commercial nuclear power plants or be encased in glass logs for eventual transfer to the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository being planned in Nevada.

MOX plant construction began Aug. 1. The groups against the proposal, Nuclear Watch South and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said the new plans should require the MOX plant to be redesigned. That would, in turn, require more environmental studies, the groups said.

Federal officials disagreed.

"We are disappointed that this group continues to make frivolous and unsupported claims about this important nonproliferation project that will not only get rid of nuclear waste material but also bring local jobs to the community," said Julianne Smith, a spokeswoman for National Nuclear Security Administration, which is overseeing the MOX facility construction.

About 400 people are building the facility, which is expected to employ about 800 when it opens in 2016.