Energy Department official recommends burying waste at SRS

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA - The U.S. Energy Department&#39;s inspector general has recommended burying millions of gallons of radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site instead of processing and storing it in Nevada. <br> <br> Inspector General Gregory Friedman said burying the waste left over from decades of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons in underground vaults at SRS in Aiken, South Carolina, will save $500 million. <br> <br> Friedman, in a report to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, said officials at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control told him they would consider approving his recommendation. <br> <br> South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges, who has waged a yearlong legal battle against the agency to keep plutonium from being shipped to the Aiken site, is also opposed to burying radioactive waste there. <br> <br> Spokesman Morton Brilliant said, ``The governor has said all along that South Carolina should not become the nation&#39;s nuclear dumping ground. ``Governor Hodges has worked very hard, and with some success, to take nuclear waste out of South Carolina. And it would be a terrible thing for the entire state if we slide back down that hill.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Energy department officials said last fall they would dispose of the waste at SRS by extracting the most dangerous materials, mixing it with sludge and converting it into glass logs. The logs would then be sent to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, selected by President Bush as the nation&#39;s permanent repository for radioactive waste. <br> <br> In the report released last week, Friedman said disposing of the waste by mixing it with cement and burying it in underground vaults at the site would save time and money.

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