According to the Savannah River site, a potential security threat is in progress that has caused emergency response. SRS says site barricades are closed to incoming traffic. According to SRS, there is no indication of any threat outside of the SRS boundaries.
The Aiken Standard reports, [3]
The Savannah River Site confirmed the facility is experiencing a “security event” at the site’s H Area; however, the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office is calling the event a “lockdown.”
As of now, no one is allowed in or out of the facility and site barricades are closed off to incoming traffic.
Savannah River Site issued a press release stating “a potential security event is in progress that has triggered emergency response activities at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site,” and the release is “being sent to you as part of our emergency response organization information process.”
SRS also stated there is no indication of a “consequence beyond the Savannah River Site boundaries,” and the Site will provide further information when it becomes available.
The site’s H Area is the location of H Canyon, the only hardened chemical separations facility still operating in the U.S. The primary mission of the H-Canyon Complex is to dissolve, purify and blend-down surplus highly enriched uranium from both within American borders and materials that come from other countries.
A secondary mission for H-Canyon is to dissolve excess plutonium and transfer it for vitrification in the Defense Waste Processing Facility at SRS.
From earlier this month:
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[4]
From the official SRS fact sheet:
H Canyon and HB Line remain and are supporting the DOE Enriched Uranium and Plutonium Disposition Programs by reducing the quantity of fissile materials in storage throughout the United States. This supports both the environmental cleanup and nuclear nonproliferation efforts and the creation of a smaller, safer, more secure and less expensive nuclear weapons complex. The canyon is used to support the disposition of highly enriched uranium and plutonium from across the DOE Complex.
Srs Fact Sheet [5]
