Savannah River Laboratory Praised at Hearing

WASHINGTON — The University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory faces elimination because of a concerted effort by top Energy Department officials to kill it, members of Congress charged Tuesday.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., said that DOE officials in Washington, including Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, participated in a deliberate effort to terminate the 56-year-old laboratory, which studies how radioactive waste moves through the environment.

Then, he said, they "misrepresented everything they'd done to anyone who would ask — the public, the press, the Congress."

"One question eludes us: why? It is hard to believe the effort to close the lab is really about $4 million," Miller said.

The termination comes as the Bush administration is considering using the Savannah River Site to demonstrate ways to reuse nuclear power plant waste. It also intends to build a plant on the site to convert plutonium from hydrogen bombs into power plant fuel.

The laboratory, which operates on the Energy Department's Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., started laying off staff last month as a result of DOE's midyear decision to cut off $4 million in federal funding. Under current plans, it will be closed by the end of this year.

Former President Jimmy Carter and the four Republican senators from Georgia and South Carolina are among persons who have urged the department to continue funding the lab.

Established in 1951 at the suggestion of university ecologist Eugene Odum, the laboratory is one of the foremost environmental laboratories in the country, scientists from other universities told Miller's subcommittee.

Tuesday's joint hearing by two House Science and Technology subcommittees were the first on the decision to cut the laboratory's funds.

Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., who requested the committee investigation, said the Energy Department had used "arbitrary and malicious budget-cutting" to destroy the lab.

Barrow said Congress not only should restore the lab's funds, but also should create similar independent facilities on other federal nuclear weapons sites.

His district runs along the Savannah River from Augusta to the coast.

Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, chairman of the energy and environment subcommittee, said the lab's work may have saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

"And what is their reward for these 50 years of service?" Lampson asked. "They have been rewarded with a loss of funding in the middle of a fiscal year, leading to layoffs and essentially the closure of the laboratory."

He also charged that the director of the lab, Georgia environmental chemistry professor Paul Bertsch, was recently fired "apparently by personal request of the secretary of energy to the president of the University of Georgia."

"Absurd," responded Energy Department spokeswoman Megan Barrett. "At no time did anyone at the Department of Energy request any personnel decisions at the University of Georgia at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory."

She said the department had been clear and open about its decisions to defund the laboratory.

Bertsch was to testify Tuesday, but his appearance was postponed until Aug. 1 because Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell was forced to cancel his own appearance in order to attend a funeral.

Members of the subcommittee staffs released Bertsch's prepared testimony, a lengthy account of a bewildering series of meetings he said he had with Energy Department officials since the spring of 2005, attempting to keep the laboratory open.

He described several occasions when he thought he had a commitment for funding, only to find that there was no commitment and additional proposals were required.

In the end, he said he was told his proposals failed to pass "peer review."

But the subcommittees' staffs found that no such review ever happened, according to Miller.

The laboratory laid off 40 employees last month and transferred from 30 to 40 more to jobs in Athens, Ga.

Another 40 are staying on until the end of this year in order to complete research projects, witnesses told the House Science and Technology Committee.