Women's Action for New Directions (WAND), a nationwide peace and disarmament organization representing thousands of members across the country, is strongly opposed to the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) fabrication facility proposed for the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina.

WAND believes the MOX project should be halted immediately and funding for alternative methods of plutonium disposition should be reinstated and increased. Funding for improved storage and oversight of plutonium both in the US and Russia should also be increased.

Scoping Meetings
The opportunity for public input on the scope of the MOX fabrication facility Environmental Impact Statement is important, though we note that far more public meetings should have been held than the three offered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Still, the scoping meetings are based on an assumption that the MOX program will be implemented. They also limit comment to issues related to the construction of a MOX fabrication facility rather than allow public input on the larger and more important questions about the MOX program itself.

Many technical, financial and political uncertainties remain that will delay the MOX program from moving forward. It is not too late to question this dangerous and misguided proposal.

Key concerns about MOX:

• MOX will contribute to new plutonium production: Proposals in Congress this year would provide funding for development of plutonium fuel (MOX) out of nuclear waste from commercial reactors. Construction of a MOX plant for weapons plutonium disposition provides the key facility necessary for additional MOX to be made at SRS. But this other MOX would require reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel (most likely taking place at SRS), which creates massive amounts of highly radioactive liquid waste as well as new stocks of accessible plutonium. The MOX program will open the plutonium floodgates.

• MOX means more plutonium in Russia: The Russian Atomic Ministry (Minatom), would carry out a MOX program for plutonium disposition in parallel with the US using western funds. But Minatom announced it will re-extract the weapons plutonium from the MOX fuel when the program is over and use its new MOX plant to create a plutonium fuel industry in Russia. As in the US, this would result in greater stocks of plutonium because of reprocessing - thus defeating the entire purpose of plutonium disposition efforts. Without the funding provided by the US MOX program, Russia could not afford this nuclear nightmare.

• MOX is expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary: MOX will cost more money than the current alternative, immobilization. While the Dept. of Energy has all but canceled immobilization by zeroing out funding, MOX costs are increasing as is its share of taxpayer dollars. But while immobilization could handle all surplus US weapons plutonium, MOX cannot, making it a redundant and unnecessary program. With immobilization, one process could be used for plutonium disposition for lower cost, fewer proliferation consequences, and far less generation of radioactive waste.

• MOX means more radioactive waste: Plutonium slated for MOX must be "purified" so that it can be used in a reactor -- a process that will create millions of gallons of plutonium-laced and other radioactive waste. Without MOX, that plutonium could be managed without creating more nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site, which is already heavily contaminated.

• MOX increases reactor safety hazards: No commercial reactor anywhere in the world has ever used fuel made from weapons plutonium. Weapons MOX hastens reactor aging and embrittlement and makes the reactor more difficult to operate safely.

• MOX is an attractive target to terrorists: Before MOX is used in a reactor, the plutonium in the fuel can be easily extracted. Either during transport on public roads or while stored at reactor sites, MOX fuel would be a prime terrorist target.

• MOX steals money and attention from desperately needed clean-up: The Department of Energy proposed in its Fiscal Year 2002 budget to cut clean-up at SRS by $150 million while increasing MOX funds by over $37 million. SRS is one of the most contaminated places on earth and continues to contaminate downwind and downstream communities in Georgia and South Carolina. Cleanup, not new plutonium production work, should be top priority.

It is not only the proposed MOX fabrication facility that threatens our environment with possible plutonium releases, accidental criticalities and generation of new liquid waste. The program as a whole poses many unique safety and security risks and represents a major policy shift in the United States with international implications.

Plutonium processing and MOX fabrication at SRS sends a signal that the United States approves the use of plutonium as a commercial product. This message exacerbates plutonium safety and security concerns and undermines efforts to halt the spread of this dangerous material by creating an incentive to produce more.

The MOX program should be stopped and replaced with a fully funded research program to find less harmful, risky, and proliferation prone means of storing, disposing of, and managing plutonium.

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