Dec. 30—Editor's note: The Aiken Standard is counting down its top 10 local stories for 2022 from Dec. 22-31.
Projects in Aiken County will receive $168.85 million (28.14%) from the $600 million settlement South Carolina and the Department of Energy reached to resolve litigation over plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site and the failure of the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility.
Aiken County projects in the budget included:
— $30 million to construct a new career and technical center for Aiken County Public School District at Aiken Technical College;
— $25 million to the city of Aiken for downtown upgrades and economic development on the northside;
— $20 million for a new lock and dam at Savannah Bluff;
— $20 million for offsite infrastructure for the Savannah River National Laboratory;
— $15 million for a cyber command building in North Augusta;
— $11.5 million for a nursing school at Aiken Technical College;
— $10 million for the National Guard Dreamport at USC Aiken;
— $10 million for an eastern Aiken County industrial park;
— $6 million for a Rural Health Services building;
— $4 million for a waterline along S.C. Highway 39;
— $2 million for a regional waste transfer station in North Augusta;
— $1.2 million for improvements to Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park; and
— $900,000 for the Aiken Railroad.
The compromise did not fund an Aiken County Law Enforcement Complex or upgrades at the Horse Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The $1.7 trillion federal omnibus spending bill approved before Christmas included $5 million for the plant.
Reaching the settlement
S.C. Sen. Tom Young, R-Aiken, said that it was a years-long effort to reach the plutonium settlement and obtain as much of the funds for Aiken County as possible.
He said the process began when then-Congressman Lindsey Graham, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, Congressman Joe Wilson, R-S.C., and U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings sponsored legislation — that later became law — requiring the Department of Energy to start producing mixed-oxide fuel with the plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site or remove it from the state by 2016.
If the Department of Energy did not meet this deadline, it would owe the state up to $100 million per year until the plutonium was removed.
"If you jump ahead, spring and summer of 2015, our legislative delegation met with then-Gov. [Nikki] Haley and Attorney General [Alan] Wilson on multiple occasions about the fact that the plutonium was still in the state at the site and the MOX project was ... in jeopardy," Young said at an Aiken Republican Club meeting. "We gained their support for the state filing a suit under the provision that was in the 2002 law seeking penalties to the state for failing to remove the MOX plutonium."