Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A group of residents who live near the Savannah River Site filed a motion Wednesday to intervene in a federal lawsuit and to require the Department of Energy to pay them if plutonium is brought into South Carolina from Colorado.

The group's motion is now part of the lawsuit brought by Gov. Jim Hodges to keep the federal government from permanently storing the weapons-grade nuclear material at the facility near the Georgia border.

Danny Black, president of the Tri-county Alliance in nearby Barnwell, said even though the federal government produced dangerous radioactive material for bombs at SRS for years, "the site has never paid a dime as far as impact fees."

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie is scheduled to hear arguments in Hodges' lawsuit on June 13, two days before the Energy Department could begin shipping surplus plutonium from the former Rocky Flats plant south of Boulder.

A message left for a DOE spokesman was not immediately returned Wednesday.

The governor has said the state will take the plutonium and process it into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors or for an immobilization project if Energy officials agree to operate under a court-ordered consent decree. That would mean that the state could stop shipments or force the removal of material if the DOE failed to live up to its end of the deal.

The agency has said that would require it to give up sovereignty to the state and is asking Currie to rule immediately in its favor.

The Energy Department contends the shipments to South Carolina are essential to meeting its goal of cleaning up and closing Rocky Flats by 2006.

Neil Robinson, a lawyer for the group of residents, said Wednesday's request for compensation is a Fifth Amendment right.

Without a clear plan to get the plutonium out of South Carolina "we're simply going to be the dumping ground," he said. "The entire country will benefit from that."

Robinson and another lawyer, Marguerite Willis, said their firm is taking the case on a reduced contingency fee basis — not to run up legal fees.

"I didn't like the notion of waiting 10 to 15 years for a penalty," Willis said, referring to federal legislation that would require the government to pay only if certain deadlines for processing the material aren't met years down the road.

Attorneys for the residents said the federal law cited in the motion allows people in a class-action suit to collect up to $10,000 each.

Hodges has asked the court to stop the plutonium from being shipped to SRS because Energy officials failed to conduct tests to evaluate the effects the material would have on the environment.

"This lawsuit focuses on what could or should happen if the federal government stores plutonium in South Carolina," Hodges said. "I'm working to keep the plutonium from being shipped here in the first place unless we have legally enforceable safeguards in place to protect South Carolinians' health and safety.

"This new suit doesn't interfere with my goal. It's just another sign of the growing opposition to plutonium-dumping in South Carolina."

May 30, 2002

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