March 10, 2010

AIKEN, S.C. (AP) -- A panel has expressed concerns about old firefighting equipment at the Savannah River Site, a former nuclear weapons complex along the South Carolina-Georgia border.

In a January letter to a U.S. Energy Department official, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman John Mansfield wrote that the site is the only facility among the ones they evaluated where every major piece of firefighting equipment had exceeded its life expectancy.

The board's report says first-line engines are 17 years old, one engine is 20 years old and the reserve engine is 31 years old.

Will Callicott, a spokesman for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the site's primary contractor, says officials are getting two new fire trucks and expect to have them there before the end of the year.

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