[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 1, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11478-S11480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ANNIVERSARY OF THE SAVANNAH RIVER SITE

  Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate the 
Savannah River Site, located in my hometown of Aiken, South Carolina, 
on it's fiftieth anniversary. On November 28, 1950, President Truman 
announced the construction of the Savannah River Site. In celebration 
of this important milestone, I would like to insert the following essay 
recounting the rich history of this American institution into the 
Congressional Record.
  I would also like to extend my appreciation to Mr. James M. Gaver, 
the Director of the Office of External Affairs at the Savannah River 
Operations Office and the unofficial ``Savannah River Site historian'' 
for writing the following composition. I ask unanimous consent that his 
essay be inserted into the Record.
  Without objection the essay was ordered printed in the Record.

                      Essay by Mr. James M. Gaver

       For the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA), the Cold War 
     created greater change than the Civil War, an unlikely 
     storyline in the deep South. Between 1950 and 1955 a 
     transformation occurred with breathtaking speed that 
     eradicated small railroad towns, farms, and mill villages 
     typical of mid twentieth-century Southern life on the 
     Savannah. These familiar agrarian settings were replaced with 
     a technological complex built and operated by men and women 
     who came from all parts of the country. International events 
     and science had come to South Carolina and Georgia in the 
     form of the Savannah River Plant. This industrial complex of 
     nine manufacturing and process areas integrated into one 
     plant was needed to produce plutonium and tritium for the 
     nation's defense.
       The participants in the making of the Savannah River 
     Plant--scientists, engineers, construction workers, local 
     politicians, community members, and uprooted residents--were 
     a study in diversity. Yet each, driven by patriotism, 
     contributed to the success of the project. The production 
     line and laboratory were the chosen theaters of war for the 
     scores of scientists, industrial managers, engineers, and 
     support personnel of all descriptions. With families in tow, 
     they became atomic age homesteaders within the Savannah River 
     Valley. Environmental researchers joined their ranks, 
     charting physical change within the plant area and helping 
     give birth to the discipline of ecology. Construction workers 
     and craftsmen came in droves to participate in an industrial 
     and engineering ``event'' that ranked with the construction 
     of the Panama Canal. Industrial boosters and state and local 
     politicians crowed at the site selection that rooted atomic 
     energy development in the CSRA. For them, the country's need 
     marvelously coincided with the economic need of their 
     constituencies. The final profile belongs to the 6,000 
     individuals or 1,500 families relocated from the 315 square 
     mile area selected for the plant in Aiken, Barnwell, and 
     Allendale counties, South Carolina. Their contribution was 
     remarkable, changing the course of their family's histories.
       With Japan's surrender on August 14, 1945, Americans began 
     to celebrate the end of the war and make plans for the 
     future. Their euphoria was shortlived. It was swiftly 
     replaced by images of an Iron Curtain, Soviet domination 
     and terror, mushroom clouds, fears of radiation, and the 
     potential for mass destruction. The Cold War began in 
     Europe over the remains of Nazi Germany as the Allies 
     began planning for postwar Europe. Germany was divided 
     into two nations and the U.S. Congress appropriated 
     billions of dollars to our Allies in Western Europe for 
     defense and economic aid.
       Between 1945 and 1947, mistrust between the United States 
     and Soviet Russia hardened into belief systems. The Truman 
     Doctrine presented to Congress on March 12,

[[Page S11479]]

     1947, sketched out the political situation. Two worlds were 
     emerging, one in which people lived in freedom, while the 
     second was bent on coercion, terror, and oppression. Global 
     conflict resulted as opposing economic and social systems 
     were pitted against one another on a technological 
     battlefield. Furthermore, continued advancement within the 
     atomic bomb program that had just ended one war was 
     considered critical to wage the next.
       After a job well done, some Manhattan Project scientists 
     and engineers returned to the private sector. Du Pont, the 
     main contractor for Hanford, also retired from the field of 
     atomic energy. The Manhattan Project continued with a core 
     group of atomic bomb project veterans under the direction of 
     the indomitable General Leslie Groves. The nation's third and 
     fourth plutonium bombs, Shot Able and Shot Baker, were tested 
     at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in July 1946. These tests gave 
     an invited audience of military officers, congressmen, 
     journalists, and scientists firsthand knowledge of the power 
     of the bombs. The high profile of the tests ensured that 
     atomic weapons research and development remained in the 
     forefront of the nation's defense strategy during this uneasy 
     peacetime.
       Responsibility for America's atomic arsenal had been 
     transferred from the military to the civilian Atomic Energy 
     Commission (AEC) established by the Atomic Energy Act of 
     1946. The commission was composed of a five-member board that 
     served full-time, assisted by scientific and military 
     advisory committees. Headed by TVA veteran David Lilienthal, 
     the AEC was in the process of recasting the nation's atomic 
     energy program when the Soviets exploded their first atomic 
     weapon on August 27, 1949. On September 23, 1949, President 
     Truman announced the end of the U.S. monopoly in atomic 
     bombs. The Soviet test, named Joe I by the American press, 
     shocked the American public, its leaders, scientists, and 
     intelligence agencies. The Commission and its advisors began 
     a new evaluation of their proposed program energized by ``the 
     old spirit of emergency.''
       The need for the thermonuclear bomb provoked serious debate 
     within a small circle of individuals that included the 
     members of the AEC's General Advisory Committee, the AEC 
     commissioners and staff, the Senate and House Joint Committee 
     on Atomic Energy, Defense Department officials, and a group 
     of concerned scientists. Would an H-bomb improve our 
     retaliatory strength enough to justify the diversion of 
     materials from the A-bomb program? Would large bombs such as 
     the ``Super'' merely give the illusion of security? No 
     consensus was reached. Truman then created a subcommittee of 
     the National Security Council. Secretary of State Dean 
     Acheson, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, and AEC Chairman 
     David Lilienthal were appointed to provide direction. 
     President Truman received the sub-committee's recommendation 
     that the United States should proceed with an all-out nuclear 
     effort. He signed this recommendation to develop all forms of 
     atomic weapons, including the ``Super,'' on January 31, 1950. 
     This recommendation would lead to the announcement of the 
     Savannah River Plant by the close of the year.
       Preliminary designs for the new hydrogen bomb required 
     quantities of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to 
     be fused with deuterium, another isotope of hydrogen, for 
     energy release. While Hanford's production reactors were 
     already producing tritium, weapon design in the early 1950s 
     suggested a dramatic increase in the need for tritium. To 
     provide tritium for design and testing purposes for the short 
     term, Hanford's reactors would be used. For long term 
     production, the AEC determined that two new production 
     reactors of significantly different design were to be built 
     at a new location. In May 1950, the cost of the new plant was 
     forecasted at $247,854,000 and a base of operations was 
     established in Washington in late June to shepherd the new 
     plant into reality. Curtis Nelson was selected as the AEC 
     manager for the new project. Nelson was a likely candidate. A 
     civil engineer by training with experience in managing large 
     construction projects, he was on assignment as U.S. liaison 
     to Canada's nuclear program at Chalk River, Ontario, when he 
     was posted as the manager for the new project. Highly 
     enriched uranium (HEU) fuel rods were needed to increase 
     tritium production, but the process for making tritium was 
     not yet fully tested. Data from Canada's NRX heavy-water 
     reactor that used HEU fuel rods could provide data for the 
     American effort and Nelson was already on hand. Cooperation 
     with the Canadian program could be helpful in America's bid 
     to win the arms race.
       Du Pont was chosen as the prime contractor for the plant. 
     The chemical firm's work during the Manhattan Project at Oak 
     Ridge on the X-10 complex; the design, construction, and 
     wartime operation of the production facility at Hanford; and 
     Du Pont's postwar role as technical advisors on various 
     developing atomic energy projects positioned the Delaware-
     based firm for the job. Du Pont was released from its Hanford 
     assignment in 1946 at its own request, turning over operation 
     of the plant to General Electric. Four years later, the firm, 
     then headed by atomic energy pioneer Crawford Greenewalt, was 
     asked by the White House and the Commission to reprise its 
     role. Du Pont's acceptance of the enormous job was announced 
     on August 2, 1950. The Du Pont firm established the Atomic 
     Energy Division (AED) within its Explosives Department and 
     began putting together a team for the new project and 
     division.
       Planning began immediately with site selection and reactor 
     design uppermost in mind. Du Pont worked closely with the 
     AEC, helping to mold the plant it would operate. When the 
     North Korean Army drove across the 38th parallel into the 
     Republic of Korea in June 1950, the Atomic Energy Commission 
     decided to add three more reactors to the two already 
     planned, adding to the complexity of the proposed plant. With 
     legislation in place to provide a legal basis for the AEC's 
     intended acquisition, a tract in South Carolina's Barnwell 
     and Aiken counties was chosen out of 114 candidate sites for 
     the new plant. The search that began in June ended on 
     November 10th with the search committee's recommendation for 
     the South Carolina site. Water, abundant in supply and low in 
     mineral content, topography, the isolated character of the 
     site, an available labor pool, and military defense all 
     figured into the Site's selection.
       Reaction to the public announcement of the site selection 
     on November 28, 1950 was jubilant in Georgia and South 
     Carolina. Senator Edgar A. Brown and Augusta's Chamber of 
     Commerce Secretary, Lester Moody, had been working for months 
     to secure the new plant for the CSRA. Clark Hill Dam, 
     Hartwell Dam, and the new H-bomb plant were evolutionary 
     steps in the shaping of the area's industrial future. 
     Atomic piles, known as reactors, would soon rub shoulders 
     and share the river water with Graniteville and Augusta's 
     textile mills. Newspaper headlines clamored that Augusta 
     would become a metropolis, Aiken a ``fast growing city,'' 
     and Barnwell and environs would quickly follow suit.
       Slicing through the clamor were the voices of those 
     displaced by the plant. Residents of Ellenton (population 
     600), Dunbarton (population 231), Hawthorne, Meyers Mill, 
     Robbins, Leigh, and farmers and tenants within the outlying 
     areas listened sadly and carefully as AEC, U.S. Army Corps of 
     Engineers, Du Pont, and local officials outlined what was 
     ahead for them. Eighteen months were allotted for the staged 
     evacuation of 1500 families. Ellenton residents were to be 
     evacuated by March 1, 1952, Dunbarton residents by June 15. 
     Land appraisers would contact owners, beginning the 
     acquisition process. Those in construction priority areas had 
     six weeks notice. The many families who rented or 
     sharecropped for their livelihood were also deeply affected. 
     In a month usually filled with warm thoughts of home and the 
     upcoming holidays, ``the DPs,'' those displaced by the 
     federal taking, grappled with future plans under the scrutiny 
     of reporters who told their story to the nation. Some 
     displaced families chose to physically move their homes out 
     of the area, relocating in the new town of New Ellenton, 
     Jackson, or other environs. Others moved to existing 
     neighboring communities.
       The original boundaries also included the communities of 
     Jackson and Snelling; when acquisition plans were finalized, 
     these communities were not affected. In 1952, a corridor was 
     added from the site to the Savannah River along Lower Three 
     Runs Creek in Barnwell and Allendale counties. The South 
     Atlantic Real Estate Division of the U.S. Army Corps of 
     Engineers (COE) conducted the acquisition program, ultimately 
     acquiring 1,706 tracts of land, totaling 200,742 acres. 
     Seventy four percent of the acquired properties were farms 
     cultivated in corn, cotton, and peanuts. Small tenant farms 
     were in the majority; the agricultural labor pool was 
     predominantly African American. The plant area was closed to 
     the public on December 14.
       Sign posted at Ellenton, South Carolina border. ``It is 
     hard to understand why our town must be destroyed to make a 
     bomb that will destroy someone else's town that they love as 
     much as we love ours, but we feel that they picked not just 
     the best spot in the U.S. but the best in the world. We love 
     these dear hearts and gentle people, who live in our home 
     town.''
       Between January 1951 and 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission 
     constructed a self-sufficient industrial plant that was 
     considered the largest single construction job it had ever 
     undertaken. Its magnitude and scope were unequaled, in a half 
     century punctuated by immense engineering and construction 
     projects such as the Panama Canal, Tennessee Valley 
     Authority, and the AEC's own Manhattan Project-era plants at 
     Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington. At peak 
     construction in September 1952, 38,582 workers labored 54 
     hours a week under the direction of Du Pont engineers. South 
     Carolina (25,019) and Georgia (13,776) contributed the 
     majority of the project's construction force; however, forty-
     nine states and the Panama Canal Zone were also represented 
     in the ranks.
       Design flowed from Du Pont and its subcontractors drawing 
     tables through the national laboratories and the Atomic 
     Energy Commission. Five reactors, two chemical separations 
     plants, a heavy water plant, a fuel and target 
     manufacturing area, and laboratories were joined by over 
     sixty miles of railroad, 230 miles of new roads, the 
     state's first cloverleaf intersection, power plants, and 
     other infrastructure. Three safety awards were earned by 
     the project, a coup for Du Pont's Construction Field 
     Manager Bob Mason. And an esprit de corps, shown in the 
     project newspaper ``SRP News and Views'' and in athletics 
     and other recreational events, was fostered by the 
     schedule, secrecy, purpose, and magnitude of the project.

[[Page S11480]]

       Between 1950 and 1960, the Savannah River communities grew 
     substantially as they absorbed the incoming work force. 
     Augusta grew by 25 percent, North Augusta tripled its 
     population, while Aiken, Williston, and Barnwell doubled in 
     size. Jackson, a rim community, achieved town status, as did 
     New Ellenton located to the north of the plant.
       The trailer cities that had housed the construction workers 
     and their families were archaeological sites by 1960. More 
     lasting were an estimated 5,465 homes built to accommodate 
     operating staff and their families in the surrounding 
     counties. The Housing and Home Finance Administration 
     provided grants after AEC review to offset the expansion of 
     basic community services. The affected communities 
     experienced growing pains in all directions, as schools, 
     roads, water and sewage systems, parks, and basic community 
     needs were all impacted.
       Inside the plant fence, the Community Chest Program was 
     chosen by the plant management as a way for workers to show 
     their community support. Each year money was energetically 
     collected in support of this program, and contributors would 
     indicate which community should receive their donation. In 
     1952, $50,908 were contributed; a year later contributions 
     soared to $74,015. The new atomic community already had 
     neighborhood pride.
       In education, the AEC made great strides in the fields of 
     science and technology. Under an agreement with the Southern 
     Regional Education Board in 1956, a cooperative program began 
     in which college students could attend classes and work at 
     the plant alternating terms. Georgia Institute of Technology 
     and University of Florida students were the first to sign up. 
     Grants were also made to regional universities to fund the 
     development of programs in atomic energy and related fields. 
     At the high school level, science students were invited on 
     Thomas Alva Edison's birthday to come to the plant and tour 
     facilities to learn about the peaceful applications of atomic 
     energy. Civic talks were given and science fairs held. 
     Finally, membership in professional organizations abounded 
     and local chapters of heretofore national organizations were 
     established in the Central Savannah River Area.
       Massive amounts of concrete, steel, rebar, lumber, and 
     macadam were used to create the Savannah River Plant. 
     Construction statistics are staggering, attesting to the epic 
     nature of the undertaking. However, the construction activity 
     was confined to an industrial core area, leaving a large 
     buffer zone of land untouched by industrial construction. In 
     this zone, an equally epic undertaking mostly orchestrated by 
     nature occurred. A ``garden'' grew up around the machine.
       The U.S. Forest Service, under contract with the AEC, set 
     out about 10,000,000 pine seedlings along the plant perimeter 
     for screening and erosion control in 1952-53, and then 
     launched a forest management program for an additional 60,000 
     acres. Their efforts, combined with the retirement of 
     thousands of acres of farmland from cultivation, the 
     impact of intensive grading from construction, and human 
     neglect factored into the making of a new landscape. A 
     green space with an incredible diversity of plant and 
     animal life grew up in its stead.
       Scientific knowledge concerning the environmental impact of 
     industry, atomic or otherwise, was limited in 1950. Ecology 
     was a developing field. The AEC, with a strong sense of 
     stewardship, invited scientists from the Universities of 
     Georgia and South Carolina to collect baseline data on plant 
     and animal communities that would provide a ``before'' 
     picture with which to measure the impact of the Plant's 
     processes on the environment. Du Pont, already a leader in 
     the field of industrial ecology, was responsible for bringing 
     a team from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia 
     under the leadership of Dr. Ruth Patrick to the plant to 
     perform a biological study of the Savannah River. The 
     University of Georgia developed a program that went beyond 
     inventory, that became the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. 
     Under the direction of Dr. Eugene Odum, a large-scale study 
     of ecological succession began. Ecologists studied the 
     dynamics of change within the environment as the impress of 
     centuries of agriculture disappeared and natural succession 
     occurred. Radiation ecology studies were also an early 
     research focus. While the Cold War mission was the prime 
     mover in the shaping of the Savannah River Plant, the 
     stewardship of the land acquired for that purpose was also 
     part of the compact made with the American people.
       Since those earliest days, the employees of the Savannah 
     River Site have had sustained success in meeting their 
     commitments to the nation. They have safely fulfilled their 
     primary mission of producing plutonium and tritium for the 
     national defense--to this day the Site has maintained a 100 
     percent on-time record of production and delivery of tritium 
     to the Department of Defense. In the realm of basic science, 
     they advanced the knowledge of particle physics with the 
     proof of the existence of the neutrino in 1956. Their 
     advances in nuclear materials production led to additional 
     missions of creating radioactive isotopes for medical 
     diagnosis and treatment; industrial and research programs; 
     and NASA space missions, from Voyager to Cassini, now on its 
     way to Saturn. They designed and built the largest 
     radioactive waste vitrification facility in the world, the 
     Defense Waste Processing Facility, where highly radioactive 
     liquid waste is transformed into a solid glass form for safe 
     storage and ultimate disposition. Their early concern for the 
     environment and study of the ecological consequences of their 
     operations led to the designation of SRS as the first 
     National Environmental Research Park in 1972. They discovered 
     the natural habitat of the bacterium that causes 
     Legionnaires' Disease.
       The end of the Cold War brought significant change to the 
     Savannah River Site. The national defense mission continued 
     with the recycling and replenishment of tritium from 
     dismantled nuclear weapons, but increased attention was 
     brought to bear on waste management and environmental 
     restoration activities. This new focus included adapting 
     defense-specific technologies to peacetime applications, 
     which benefitted greatly from the Site infrastructure and the 
     historical expertise of the Site workforce. For example, Site 
     expertise in handling tritium (a form of hydrogen) has 
     yielded hydride technologies that have applications in the 
     transportation and energy industries. Advances in robotics 
     and environmental monitoring and cleanup technologies, such 
     as proving the existence of deep subsurface microbes and 
     employing them for in-situ remediation of wastes, have led to 
     applications not just at SRS, but across the country and 
     around the world. The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, 
     widely recognized as the birthplace of the modern science of 
     ecology, has a laboratory at Chernobyl, Ukraine, where 
     scientists share their expertise in helping the Ukrainians 
     recover from that disaster.
       Today, the future of the Savannah River Site looks as 
     bright as it did 50 years ago. In the area of stockpile 
     stewardship, it will continue its key national defense 
     mission as the nation's sole source for tritium using a new 
     Tritium Extraction Facility now under construction. It will 
     also provide a backup source for plutonium weapon components, 
     called pits, should the nation require that increased 
     capacity. In the area of nuclear materials stewardship, it 
     will contribute to our nation's nonproliferation efforts to 
     reduce the global nuclear danger. It will receive surplus 
     weapons plutonium from other DOE sites for safe, secure 
     storage pending disposition; some of the plutonium will be 
     stored in one of the old reactors which previously created 
     the plutonium. It will prepare that surplus plutonium for 
     final disposition. One new facility will immobilize the 
     plutonium in ceramic disks that will be encased in canisters 
     of protective radioactive glass at the Defense Waste 
     Processing Facility. Other new facilities, the Pit 
     Disassembly and Conversion Facility and the Mixed-Oxide Fuel 
     Fabrication Facility, will convert the plutonium from 
     dismantled weapons into commercial reactor fuel which will 
     provide electrical power while it is slowly converted into 
     non-weapons-usable spent fuel. It will also down-blend 
     weapons-usable highly enriched uranium into a low-enrichment 
     form usable as fuel in commercial power reactors. In the area 
     of environmental stewardship, it will develop technologies 
     and practices to manage wastes and clean up the environment 
     more efficiently and cost effectively. Its longstanding 
     support for, and from, its neighbors in the Central Savannah 
     River Area will reinforce its commitment to success in all 
     these endeavors.

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