SRS Awaits Decision on $4 Billion Nuclear Plant

May 12, 2004

South Carolina's Savannah River Site could soon find out if it's in line for a $4 billion plant.

Linton Brooks, the administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, says a highly anticipated report about the nation's nuclear stockpile was being reviewed and will be given to Congress within weeks.

Officials had delayed locating the multibillion dollar plutonium trigger production plant until the agency outlined current and future conditions of the country's nuclear arsenal.

Brooks joined Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham at SRS last week to recognize the Savannah River National Laboratory. Brooks declined to discuss the report or which of five potential sites he favored.

Other sites in contention for the modern pit facility are the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, both in New Mexico; and the Nevada Test Site.

"You can't make intelligent decisions if you don't know what the stockpile is," Brooks said.

The plant would build plutonium pits used to detonate nuclear weapons.

Brook's agency at first wanted to have a final environmental impact statement and choose a site by April. But it was announced earlier this year that any decision would wait until Congress could review the country's nuclear weapons and what the United States might need in the future.

Congressional delegates from South Carolina and Georgia have pushed to have the modern pit facility at SRS. Supporters say SRS's extensive experience with plutonium and its vast infrastructure make it the best selection.