Standoff between S.C., Energy Department over plutonium shipments

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Posted 8:01AM on Friday, April 12, 2002

COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina's governor and the federal Energy Department are locking horns over planned plutonium shipments to the state -- a dispute federal officials say is delaying nuclear cleanup nationwide. The Energy Department wants to ship plutonium from a former nuclear weapons site in Rocky Flats, Colo., to a plant near Aiken, S.C., where it would be converted into fuel for nuclear reactors. Gov. Jim Hodges says he supports the idea, but he won't allow the weapons-grade material into the state until the government agrees to make the shipping agreement legally binding. It appeared the standoff had ended Thursday after the governor agreed to a written proposal from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that said he would send a 30-day notice of when the shipments would begin. But Hodges also wanted a consent order filed in federal court that would have let a judge order the Energy Department to remove the plutonium if it did not meet the terms of the agreement. The department rejected that request, and Hodges said the situation is back to square one. Hodges wants the Energy Department to provide a document outlining schedules to fund the construction of Mixed Oxide, or MOX, fuel treatment facilities, when to expect the shipments and when they would leave South Carolina. "All I want to know is whether I've got something I can run down to the federal courthouse if they don't honor the terms and get a judge to stop shipments," he said Thursday. Abraham said the agency addressed Hodges' concerns in the proposed agreement by establishing annual funding targets, committing to notify the state of all plutonium shipments and including firm dates that the material would be removed from the state if the Energy Department was unable to come up with the funds to build the MOX facility. President Bush included $384 million to fund the plutonium disposition program in the next fiscal year, beginning July 1. The budget also noted that the project would require funding of $3.8 billion over the next 20 years, Abraham wrote. The standoff springs from the federal government's plan to clean up Rocky Flats, northwest of Denver, and turn it into a wildlife refuge. Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons for 40 years, but it closed in 1989. To meet the 2006 conversion deadline, the Energy Department needs to begin shipping plutonium soon, although department officials won't give an exact date. The state and federal governments' inability to reach an agreement has held up cleanup activities at former nuclear plants across the nation, Abraham said. It also jeopardizes the 2000 U.S.-Russian plutonium disposition agreement, he said. "We need to move forward with the MOX plant that will be used to dispose of the plutonium at issue in order to honor our commitments to the Russian Federation," Abraham wrote.