Savannah River Site

Description and Current Mission

The Savannah River Site (SRS) occupies some 300 sq-mi of south-central South Carolina along the Savannah River between the towns of Barnwell and Aiken. The city of Augusta, Georgia is fifteen miles northwest of the site. The facility is operated by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, a consortium headed by Flour Daniel, that includes Fluor Corporation, Newport News Nuclear (a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries), and Honeywell International. It employs about 9,000 people, of which 1,400 support NNSA activities. This huge reservation was established by eminent domain in November 1950 and construction was largely completed by 1956. At its peak, the plant included five heavy-water-moderated production reactors; fabrication facilities for enriched-uranium driver fuel and targets for plutonium and tritium production; a heavy water plant; a tritium extraction, purification, and reservoir-loading complex; and two chemical separation plants. Over a 35-year period, the plant produced all of the tritium and a portion of the plutonium used in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Following the end of the Cold War, production of weapons materials ceased and the remaining production reactors were shut down. Tritium purification and loading operations have continued, but the main mission of SRS for the past two decades has been nuclear waste management and environmental cleanup. The cleanup of SRS has already cost tens of billions of dollars and no end is yet in sight.

In the late 1990s, SRS acquired a new mission in a non-proliferation deal with the Russians that remains controversial- 'disposition' of 34 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium by converting it into plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors. Use of this technology in the civil sector creates inventories of separated plutonium potentially usable in weapons, and thus has significant negative implications for nuclear security and non-proliferation. A Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at SRS was initially designed to convert this surplus weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors, however, due to cost overruns, delays, and changing policy priorities, the project was terminated in 2018 after about $8 billion had already been spent. The original estimate of $5 billion ballooned to over $17 billion by the time of its cancellation.

The only other activities at SRS that continue to support the nuclear weapons stockpile are the tritium missions, which employ some 500 workers, and involve extraction, purification, and loading of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is used to 'boost' the performance of the plutonium pit primaries in nuclear weapons.

Savannah River Site Tritium Missions:

- Tritium Supply - extraction of tritium from irradiated target rods and management of the tritium inventory for the nuclear stockpile.
- Nuclear Stockpile Maintenance - loading of tritium and deuterium into reservoirs that are used in the gas transfer system of a nuclear weapon.
- Nuclear Stockpile Evaluation - surveillance of gas transfer systems to assure reliability in the absence of nuclear testing.
- Helium-3 Recovery - recovery of this byproduct of tritium's radioactive decay for use in neutron detectors and various commercial applications.
(Source: National Nuclear Security Administration)

The recently modernized SRS Tritium Facilities consist of an interconnected set of production, processing, support, and administrative buildings located within a 25-acre compound in the H-Area.

The New Manufacturing Building is the reservoir loading and unloading facility. This underground facility has been in operation since 1993 and houses the gas processing systems necessary to remove, separate, and purify hydrogen isotope gas streams (primarily recycled from active or retired nuclear weapons). The desired mix of isotopes is then reloaded into reservoirs destined to be put back into weapons in the active stockpile.

Manufacturing Building No. 3 is primarily used for reservoir finishing, quality assurance activities, and shipping and receiving of reservoirs. This building also houses an analytical laboratory, an inert reservoir loading facility, and other support activities.

The Pressure Testing Facility is the Helium-3 (He-3) processing facility. This facility is nearing the end of its useful life. He-3 processing is scheduled to be relocated into the New Manufacturing Building.

The Material Testing Facility, completed in 2004, contains environmental chambers and ovens, which support the reservoir storage program, and a metallurgical laboratory used for analysis of tritium-contaminated components.

The Reclamation Building is a contaminated machine shop used to reclaim reservoirs that were returned from the field. During this process, the existing fill stem is removed and replaced with a new stem. The reservoir is subsequently inspected and returned to 'War Reserve' status.

Production of tritium now occurs off-site, in 'Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods' (TPBARs) that are irradiated in the cores of TVA's Watts Bar nuclear reactors. The irradiated TPBARs are shipped from Tennessee to the SRS H-Area Tritium Facilities, where they are processed in the Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF), which was completed in November 2006. This facility has two parts- the Remote Handling Building, where tritium is extracted from the TPBARs by heating them in furnaces, and a Processing Building, where the gas is purified before being transferred to the New Manufacturing Building for reservoir loading.

NNSA also performs surveillance on gas transfer systems at SRS. This includes extensive testing and metallographic evaluation. Reservoirs are then reloaded, reinspected, and shipped to either DoD sites for exchange operations involving active stockpile weapons, or to NNSA's Pantex Plant for installation in weapons undergoing Life Extension Programs.

SRS in NNSA's 'Complex Transformation'

Under Complex Transformation, NNSA is planning to continue all current activities at SRS, to transfer tritium R&D activities from other sites to SRS, and to expand operations in support of reactor-based disposition of excess plutonium. NNSA's plan includes building both the PDCF and a new Waste Solidification Building (to treat waste from the MFFF and the PDCF) at SRS.

In Our Backyard Podcast By Jenn Galler - Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League's (BREDL) Podcast on environmental issues that are right in our backyards

DECEMBER 4, 2020 Tom Clements is Director at Savannah River Site Watch or SRS Watch for short. They are working for the public interest by monitoring activities at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina and other DOE and commercial nuclear projects in the southeastern U.S. region and beyond & striving to halt proliferation of weapons-usable materials.

The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a nuclear reservation in South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River, 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons.

It is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The management and operating contract is held by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC (SRNS).

Future plans for the site cover a wide range of options, including host to research reactors, a reactor park for power generation, and other possible uses. DOE and its corporate partners are watched by a combination of local, regional and national regulatory agencies and citizen groups.

With Tom, we discuss what projects SRS is working on, who owns the site and what accountability they have, plutonium fuel and the dangers, and how you can get involved.

Contact and connect with Tom: [email protected]

Savannah River Site info: https://srswatch.org/

http://www.bredl.org/nuclear/SRS.htm

https://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/savannah-river-site-fact-sheet.aspx

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/deadly-legacy-savannah-river-site-near-aiken-one-of-the-most-contaminated-places-on-earth/article_d325f494-12ff-11e7-9579-6b0721ccae53.html