Legacy of Reprocessing in SC

South Carolina has its own tragic environmental legacy from nuclear reprocessing. In 1999, the Institute for Environmental Research described the situation at our Savannah River Site (SRS):

“In South Carolina alone, reprocessing is responsible for creating the most radioactive waste in the country – over 30 million gallons of high-level liquid waste [and] tens of thousands of containers of solid radioactive waste which is buried just a few miles from the Savannah River. Already some of that waste has moved into soils and groundwater at SRS….” MORE

Today, liquid radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site has increased to nearly 36.5 million gallons. Of the facility’s 49 tanks, 12 have a history of leaks. MORE

A recent report details even more primitive disposal methods than leaky tanks, including unlined basins that were actually designed to release radioactive liquid into the ground. Given the site’s “high water table…permeable surface, many wetlands, ponds, swamps, streams and creeks…and high annual rainfall,” it is not surprising that “there are already large plumes of radioactivity moving away from contaminated areas on site.” MORE at 196-98.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that, to date, no one is sure how to clean it all up. The federal Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (“EM”) recently asked the National Academies to provide advice on its plans to clean up the Savannah River Site and three similar facilities. In a January 2008 meeting, Savannah River Site staff told the National Academies:

“Radioactive waste stored in SRS tanks poses the single greatest environmental risk in the state of South Carolina.”

In February 2008, the Academy issued an interim report, saying:

“[E]xisting knowledge and technologies are inadequate for EM to meet all of its cleanup responsibilities in a safe, timely, and cost-effective way.” MORE

In particular, the National Academies commented that a “very expensive and long-term problem for the EM cleanup program involves retrieval of waste from the tanks at the Savannah River Site…” The National Academies also noted that “important groundwater and soil remediation problems remain unresolved.” MORE

However, the National Academies could not provide a specific recommendation, because cleanup technology does not currently exist. Instead, they advised the Department to pursue:

“additional R&D…to improve waste retrieval, waste processing, and tank closure [and s]ustained R&D investments…to develop monitoring strategies for containment options….. ” MORE

In other words, management of waste at the Savannah River Site is still in an experimental stage. Progress is being made on retrieving liquid waste from leaky tanks and storing it in a safer form. Also, R&D is actively underway to improve the process. Nonetheless, locating a new preprocessing complex at the Savannah River Site would only compound the problems posed by “the single greatest environmental risk in the state of South Carolina.”