Savannah River Site to get more tritium research

A proposal to streamline the nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure will be a boost to a federal site near Augusta.

The Savannah River Site processes nuclear materials.

The federal government's consolidation proposal means all activities and research involving tritium will likely happen there.

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.

The Savannah River Site refills nuclear weapons with it and also recycles it.

The site already conducts about 90 percent of the federal government's activities and research involving tritium and nuclear weapons.

It will take on research currently conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Federal officials say the nation's total nuclear weapons complex is too big and too expensive.

They want to reduce square footage of its infrastructure by 30 percent.

They also want to reduce its workforce nationally by a third, mostly through attrition.

The Savannah River Site expects to lose only about five percent, or 20, of its jobs at its tritium facilities in that cut.