SRS practices threaten the river, researcher says

SRS practices threaten the river, researcher says

The author of a new report about effects of nuclear weapons facility will talk in Savannah on Saturday.

By Mary Landers
Savannah Morning News
mary.landers@savannahnow.com
912-652-0337

A new report about the environmental effects of the Savannah River Site raises concerns about people who eat lots of fish from the Savannah River.

But the amount of radioactive materials in the river downstream from the nuclear weapons site isn't yet a concern for people who drink that water, according to the report's author, Arjun Makhijani.

Makhijani, the executive director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, will present his findings Saturday at the Annual Bi-State Conference on the Savannah River Site at Savannah State University. IEER is a nonprofit that describes its role as providing "activists, policy-makers, journalists, and the public with understandable and accurate scientific and technical information on energy and environmental issues."

The conference is free and open to the public.

Makhijani's concern for fishermen is mainly for those who depend on Savannah River fish as their main source of protein. And there are people who eat 100 pounds or more of that fish every year, he said.

Because of that, cleaning up the site and getting out information about its effects are an environmental justice issue.

"African Americans depend more on the river than any other community," he said.

Current plans for disposing of waste would likely make the situation worse by creating a de facto high level radioactive waste dump in the watershed, he said.

That's also a future threat to the drinking water.

"Currently, drinking water within the Savannah River is well within drinking water standards," Makhijani said.

The main radioactive pollutant in the river is tritium. The most recent readings put those levels at only 4 percent of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safe limit for drinking water, according to Makhijani, whose credentials include a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

The city of Savannah operates a water treatment plant that draws from a tributary of the Savannah. While that's not the source of drinking water for most Savannah residents – the Floridan aquifer is – the city sells that treated surface water to neighboring municipalities.

Attending Saturday's conference, which includes briefings from SRS officials, is "a very easy way to get an update on our neighboring nuclear weapons complex from the experts and from the government agencies themselves," according to Sara Barczak, a Savannah-based safe energy director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Makhijani's approach appeals to Barczak.

"It's not alarm bells but warning bells," she said.

He concurs.

"I'm not here to panic people," Makhijani said. "We're not in politics. We're in technology."

The Annual Bi-State Conference on the Savannah River Site is hosted by Citizens for Environmental Justice in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Savannah State University

WHEN: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday

Arjun Makhijani, author of the report, "Nuclear Dumps by the Riverside: Threats to the Savannah River from Radioactive Contamination at the Savannah River Site," is scheduled to present at two identical workshops, first at 10:05 a.m. and again at 11:20 a.m.

Youth are invited to a daylong workshop for students from age 9 through high school.

WHERE: Savannah State University, Howard Jordon Business Building

WHY: The Savannah River Site near Augusta produced more than one-third of the plutonium for U.S. nuclear bombs, almost all of the tritium and other nuclear materials for the U.S. weapons program. Past practices at SRS have created water pollution beneath the site as well as risks for water resources in the region.