Waste Shipments Blocked Appeals Court Rejects Government Efforts To Resume Nuclear Waste Shipments Into Idaho

A federal appeals court late Thursday rejected the government’s effort to resume nuclear waste shipments into Idaho.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling was 2-1 against the government’s bid for a stay and expedited appeal from an Idaho judge’s May 19 order continuing to block the shipments.

Judges Betty Fletcher and David Thompson sided with the state.

In a dissent, Judge Alex Kozinski said the government “has made a substantial showing that the district court order will impair national security.”

He said the state had made no contrary factual showing. Kozinski said the stay should be granted and the appeal expedited.

There was no immediate response from Gov. Phil Batt or other officials. The decision was sent to the state after 5 p.m. Thursday.

But it was a major victory for Batt, who had come under severe criticism in January, when he unilaterally agreed to accept eight additional Navy waste shipments that former Gov. Cecil Andrus consented to if the government could prove national security required them to be dumped.

Because of the public outcry, Batt has taken a staunch position that no additional waste shipments will come to Idaho without a court order.

The ruling was the latest development in Idaho’s long-running effort to block more nuclear waste from arriving until there is some guarantee the material eventually will be removed.

An Idaho federal judge, the late Harold Ryan, ordered shipments blocked in 1993 until the Department of Energy made an extensive environmental impact report.

But U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge, who took control of the case after Ryan’s death earlier this year, in May signed an order blocking shipments while the state prepared an appeal from the finding there would be no substantial environmental damage from the shipments.

Lodge has set July 14 for both sides to outline the issues they want developed in determining the state’s challenge to the environmental study. Lodge has indicated that he would rule in September or October on the state’s claim.

Idaho contends the environmental impact study failed to fully consider the safety and health hazards that existing stored waste presents.

The head of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, Adm. Bruce DeMars, has argued since 1992 that any interruption in Navy nuclear waste shipments into Idaho would jeopardize national security.

DeMars has said the refueling of the nuclear carrier USS Nimitz and its return to the war fleet would be delayed, and a cruiser and two submarines scheduled for decommissioning would have to remain docked with radioactive fuel stored on board.

But the state has repeatedly argued that the government’s claim of a national security emergency is of its own making. It has cited the government’s failure to even go to court for relief until June 15, even though the schedule for the refueling and defueling of the nuclear-powered ships has been known for months.

Some 261 tons of nuclear waste already are stored at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The government wants to bring another 165 tons of Navy and commercial waste to the site for storage.

But the state, backed up by Ryan’s 1993 order, maintains the waste already there presents a potential environmental and health hazard, and more would only aggravate the problem.

In his original order, Judge Ryan criticized the government for “its disregard for the law and lack of candor” with the court in pressing to unload additional waste in Idaho. Ryan said waste storage facilities there either were overloaded or at the end of their usable life.