Agency Audit Targets Safety At Savannah River Site

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - An audit of a nuclear weapons complex in South Carolina says the Savannah River Site did not meet several safety standards when constructing a new facility.

The 31-page Department of Energy report released last month also found that one of the mistakes at the site near the South Carolina-Georgia border could have resulted in a spill of high-level radioactive waste.

The safety issues involved a facility being built to convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department agency responsible for maintaining and securing the nation’s nuclear weapons, disputed the findings by the Energy Department’s inspector general.