Savannah River Site

Savannah River Site
Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell in South Carolina Near Augusta, Georgia in United States
The Savannah River Site viewed from the International Space Station.
Map showing location of the site
Coordinates	33°14′46″N 81°40′05″W / 33.246°N 81.668°W / 33.246; -81.668
Type	Nuclear Weapons Research Complex
Area	310 sq mi (800 km2)
Site information
Owner	Government of the United States
Operator	United States Department of Energy
Controlled by	National Nuclear Security Administration
Open to the public	No
Status	Active
Defining authority	United States Geological Survey (For geography, ground waters, terrains and mapping)
Site history
Built	1951 (1951)
In use	1951–Present
Test information
Remediation	1981

The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons.^[1] It covers 310 square miles (800 km²) and employs more than 10,000 people.

It is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The management and operating contract is held by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions LLC (SRNS), a partnership between Fluor Corporation, Newport News Nuclear, Inc. (a subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries) and Honeywell International,^[2] and the Integrated Mission Completion contract (including the former scope of the Liquid Waste Operations contract) is held by Savannah River Mission Completion, which is a team of companies led by BWX Technologies, AECOM, and Fluor.^[3] A major focus is cleanup activities related to work done in the past for American nuclear buildup. Currently none of the reactors on-site are operating (see list of nuclear reactors), although two of the reactor buildings are being used to consolidate and store nuclear materials. SRS is also home to the Savannah River National Laboratory and the United States' only operating radiochemical separations facility. Its tritium facilities are also the United States' only source of tritium, an essential component in nuclear weapons. The United States' only mixed oxide fuel (MOX) manufacturing plant was being constructed at SRS, but construction was terminated in February 2019.^[4] Construction was overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration. The MOX facility was intended to convert legacy weapons-grade plutonium into fuel suitable for commercial power reactors.^[5]

Future plans for the site cover a wide range of options, including host to research reactors, a reactor park for power generation, and other possible uses. DOE and its corporate partners are watched by a combination of local, regional and national regulatory agencies and citizen groups.