Check out our new channel!

Home News Articles News Releases Classified Ads Techpapers Links Contact US Media Kit

Uranium Plant to Shut Down

Paraphrased by Steve Waldrop
June 28, 2002

Columbia, South Carolina- The emergency shut down of Starmet CMI Inc. began Tuesday evening as armed guards hired by DHEC began to patrol the site.

Siting contamination and security concerns, including unguarded material that could be used to make a "dirty bomb," The state's Department of Health and Environmental Control ordered the shut down of the Barnwell uranium processing plant.

The order to close the plant stated that the company which makes counterweights used in airplanes among other metal products didn't provide enough security for the site.

The company's president and chief executive, Bob Quinn said that politics and Governor Jim Hodges were behind the plant's closing.

"We think DHEC is playing political football with the lives of 75 (employees) in an economically depressed area," Quinn said.

A spokesman for Hodges said that the governor has always taken a strong stand against nuclear waste industries that want to use South Carolina as a dumping ground.

DHEC's order said that for the past two years the company has repeatedly violated state environmental laws and improperly stored approximately 3,000 metric tons of low-level radioactive waste. The company also contaminated air, soil and groundwater with radioactive and hazardous waste.

DHEC also said that the lack of security at the site was "a threat to homeland security," however, an official with the Nuclear Control Institute said the uranium at the Barnwell facility is not desirable for weapons.

Starmet has pledged $3 million in the effort to clean up and keep the company open. Employees feel that the evaluation by the state was overblown, and they want to keep the company open and clean it up themselves.

Starmet has appealed the order, and a hearing is scheduled next week.