South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges (D) said last week that he would do "whatever it takes" to keep plutonium shipments from coming to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear-processing complex run by the U.S. Energy Department near Aiken, S.C. Hodges says the Bush administration has gone back on a plan he worked out with the Clinton administration, under which plutonium at the Savannah River Site would be taken from the state after it was converted to power-plant fuel or encased in glass. With no guarantee that processed plutonium will leave the state, Hodges fears the site could become a de facto permanent storage site for plutonium in the country. He is considering a lawsuit to block the shipments and has ordered the state Highway Patrol to draw up plans to block the state’s borders to federal trucks carrying plutonium.
