An influential board in one of two parts of the country expressing tentative interest in storing spent reactor fuel has voted not to endorse the Savannah River Site as an interim storage location for civilian nuclear waste.
Last year's report by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future and legislation pending in Congress support a consent-based process for finding interim sites to store waste previously destined for the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. Groups near the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have expressed support for hosting an interim site in New Mexico, as did a report by the SRS Community Reuse Organization.
But on Tuesday, the site's Citizens Advisory Board voted 17-6 to adopt a position opposed to interim storage at SRS. The Augusta Chronicle reported that the board ultimately sided with environmental groups because the waste would reside there for an undetermined length of time, and because there was no evidence to suggest a better alternative to Yucca Mountain would emerge for a permanent repository. Though still the subject of litigation, that project was effectively abandoned early in the first term of President Barack Obama.