A dry run was held Saturday by protesters who plan to dispatch an anti-nuclear flotilla when an expected shipment of bomb-grade plutonium passes through Charleston Harbor later this month.

Citizens Against Plutonium, a local group working with veteran national and international anti-nuclear activists, launched half a dozen boats into the harbor Saturday morning. Bearing flags with an anti-nuclear insignia, several large sailing craft, some powerboats and two kayaks bounced on choppy waters while being observed by a Charleston police boat and the Coast Guard.

GRACE BEAHM/STAFF Blake Hallman (right) and John Chapman join in a rehearsal Saturday for an anti-nuclear flotilla to protest a plutonium shipment through Charleston later this month.

One powerboat operator, Nadine Block of Maryland, playfully offered the police boat a banner but was rejected.

"You want a flag?" she asked.

About a dozen vessels are expected in the flotilla when plutonium is shipped through the harbor, CAP organizer Merrill Chapman of Mount Pleasant said. Some members of Greenpeace International and the Nuclear-Free Atlantic Flotilla are supporting the flotilla, she said.

She insisted CAP has no intention of blocking the shipment, but instead will greet it with a "peaceful, legal protest."

Federal officials insist the radioactive material left over from the Cold War can be safely shipped by truck and rail from points around the country and through Charleston Harbor to France.

In France, the plutonium is to be converted to commercial grade fuel for nuclear power plants, as part of a joint U.S.-Russian agreement intended to convert nu-clear weapons stockpiles to peaceful uses.

Chapman said Saturday was "a fun day" for organizers to gather and familiarize themselves with the harbor.

Transporting nuclear material is very dangerous, Chapman insisted. She suggested the material be "vitrified" in a process that would seal it in a type of glass.

An accident could be catastrophic and there are risks that terrorists might attempt to seize the radioactive material or cause it to be dispersed, Chapman said. Citing a recent study exposing the vulnerability of America's ports to terrorism, Chapman said shipping extremely dangerous material though an unsecured port makes no sense at all.

Mount Pleasant Attorney Stan Barnett, who has authored a novel, "A Single Star," was on hand to discuss the book and his fictional account of a South Carolina governor who tries to block a shipment of nuclear material through the state.

The Department of Energy intends to ship the plutonium from the Charleston Naval Weapons Station to France in July or August, according to a federal document.

Plans call for the plutonium, stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, to be shipped overland aboard special armored trucks to the Naval Weapons Station on the Cooper River.

From the weapons station, the plutonium then would be loaded onto two armed ocean-going vessels bound for Cherbourg, France.

There, the powdered plutonium would be fabricated into mixed oxide, or MOX fuel, at a special nuclear facility and shipped back through the Lowcountry.

The fuel assemblies to be produced in France are expected to come back through Charleston bound for Duke Energy's Catawba reactor south of Charlotte.

Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier, All Rights Reserved.

Plutonium Uranium Mixed Oxide (MOX)

Plutonium can be blended with uranium oxide to form mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.  In March 1999 Duke Energy was awarded a U.S. Department of Energy contract to convert plutonium from dismantled U.S. nuclear warheads into MOX fuel and irradiate it in the Catawba and McGuire nuclear reactors. The MOX nuclear-reactor fuel will be produced at the Savannah River Site. The nuclear materials involved are principally highly enriched uranium (HEU) --containing at least 20 percent ²³⁵U, a fissionable uranium isotope--and plutonium. HEU can be "blended down" with uranium that contains low concentrations of ²³⁵U to produce low-enriched uranium (LEU) containing up to 5 percent ²³⁵U. Both LEU and MOX can be used as fuel in commercial nuclear power reactors. After these fuels have been burned in power reactors, they are discharged as spent fuel, which is highly radioactive and difficult to use for weapons manufacture.

The MOX plan would rid the U.S. and Russia, of several tons of plutonium used in nuclear weapons.  MOX fuel, which would contain surplus plutonium, would be manufactured at SRS in a new plant being designed by Duke COGEMA. The proposed plant, to be completed in 2006, would cost between $500 million and $700 million.  The plant would employ about 400 people at the federal nuclear-weapons site.                                                                                              

Two of Duke Energy’s MOX plants, known as Catawba One and Two, are located in the vicinity of the Charlotte, North Carolina metropolitan area--near Clover, South Carolina (AAEA President Norris McDonald once lived in Clover). The other two facilities, known as McGuire One and Two, are located near Huntersville, North Carolina

WIPP shipment passing through Albuquerque in 2003

Lawmakers question security of DOE shipment of plutonium to France

By Mike Nartker, Global Security Newswire

 The Energy Department is expected next month to ship 140 kilograms of plutonium to France to be converted into mixed-oxide fuel for use in testing at a U.S. nuclear power plant for possible future energy generation. The project is intended to help advance a U.S.-Russian nonproliferation program to eliminate a combined total of almost 70 tons of plutonium.

 Antinuclear activists such as Greenpeace have long opposed the shipment, arguing that such transports could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. To demonstrate, Greenpeace activists last year were able to stop and chain themselves to a truck carrying a plutonium shipment as it traveled from a site in northern France to a facility in the south. French activists have also posted online information on the time and location of three plutonium shipments that occurred over the last two weeks, Tom Clements of Greenpeace International said today.

In an Aug. 12 letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham released Wednesday, Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas, requested information on the department's efforts to ensure that the security of the plutonium shipment would be equal to that given to shipments of nuclear material conducted within the United States. Turner also requested information on how much control the United States would relinquish over the plutonium once it leaves the country, who would assume liability in the event of an accident and whether the recent elevation of the U.S. terrorist threat level influenced security preparations for the shipment.

 "The consequences of the theft of this plutonium - - enough for over 20 nuclear weapons - - would be catastrophic," wrote Turner, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

 Turner's letter was prompted by the findings of a Government Accountability Office investigation into security measures for the plutonium shipment that he requested in June. A spokeswoman for Turner said Wednesday that the Energy Department has yet to reply to his letter.

 In addition, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a leading critic of U.S. nuclear energy officials, Tuesday sent letters to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Homeland Security Department requesting security-related information by Sept. 10 on the plutonium shipment.

 "It appears to me that an attack on the American plutonium that will soon be shipped to France would not pose much of a challenge, since publicly available materials suggest the trucks previously have been very easily identified, followed and filmed while traveling along highways in France, and were only lightly guarded," Markey said yesterday in a statement.

 The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration did not respond to calls for comment.

 NRC spokesman David McIntyre refused to comment directly on Markey's letter, referring security-related questions concerning the plutonium shipment to the Energy Department.

 McIntyre did say, though, that the physical security and protection of the shipment was a "very important" consideration in the commission's decision in June to approve the export of the plutonium to France. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is familiar with French practices, McIntyre said, and is "confident" that security arrangements for the plutonium once it reaches France will be "adequate."

1:07 p.m. August 25, 2004

WASHINGTON – Some congressional Democrats raised security concerns Wednesday about a proposed shipment of 300 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from the United States to France for conversion into a mixed-oxide fuel.

The Energy Department plans to send the plutonium by truck from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the navy yard in Charleston, S.C., where it will be loaded on a ship bound for Cherbourg, France, as part of a U.S.-Russian nonproliferation program.

Rep. Jim Turner of Texas, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said in a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that he was concerned about the security of the shipment, especially when it reaches France.

"It is clear that extraordinary security is planned for the shipment," Turner said in his letter.

But, he said, he wants greater assurances that security for the shipment in France would be of the same level as planned for in the United States. He also questioned whether there had been adequate "independent oversight and review" of the shipment plan by other agencies.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also raised concerns about the shipments. Markey, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, questioned whether the Department of Homeland Security has reviewed the plan.

The Energy Department says the shipment has been meticulously planned with high levels of security incorporated.

Once the shipment arrives in Cherbourg, it is to go by land to a French reprocessing facility, where the plutonium can be turned into a less dangerous mixed oxide. Then it is to be returned to the United States.

The Energy Department plans to use that material in four fuel assemblies at Duke Energy's Catawba nuclear power plant in South Carolina. The test assemblies are part of a U.S.-Russian program in which each country has pledged to dispose of 64 metric tons of excess plutonium.

The United States plans to dispose of its material by burning it in commercial nuclear reactors as mixed oxide. However, the initial shipments have to be sent to France because the United States has yet to build a mixed-oxide processing facility.

Details of the shipment, including timing, are classified, but it is expected to occur later this year. According to the Energy Department, the plutonium would be carried on two British vessels guarded by specially trained British troops and escorted by the U.S. Coast Guard in U.S. waters.

On the Net:

Energy Department: www.energy.gov