Feds Petition Idaho To Take Nuclear Waste ‘Flawed’ Environmental Assessment May Fuel Batt’s Fight Against Resuming Shipments To Inel

The federal government wants U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to force the state of Idaho to immediately resume accepting high-level nuclear waste for storage at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

But Gov. Phil Batt said on Friday he will vehemently resist.

“We’ll fight it with everything we’ve got,” the governor said after being notified of the emergency filing.

The state must respond to the government’s contentions by Wednesday, the day the government wants Lodge to decide on its petition. Batt said the state may ask for more time.

In its petition, the Justice Department asked that Lodge completely lift the May 19 ban on new waste shipments or at least order the state to accept 12 more shipments of spent fuel rods from the Navy before the end of June.

Lodge imposed the ban last month pending resolution of the state’s challenge to an environmental study that maintained INEL could safely store another 1,950 waste shipments until a permanent dump outside Idaho is opened - possibly another 40 years.

And Batt may have gotten a boost in his attempt to prove the study was inadequate.

The Environmental Defense Institute in Troy, Idaho, announced that its review of INEL documents indicates that 90 tons of waste was dumped at the site prior to 1980 but never included on waste inventories that now total 261 tons.

“This means there is a fundamental flaw” in the government’s environmental assessment, Director Chuck Broscious said. “That’s going to give Governor Batt the smoking gun he needs to continue to keep the injunction in place.”

Lodge’s order short-circuited government plans to resume waste shipments on June 1.

The Justice Department claimed Lodge failed to require the state to meet traditional legal standards for obtaining that order - standards federal attorneys say the state could not have met.

Absent meeting those standards, the government claimed, Idaho gave up its right to challenge the environmental assessment two years ago in return for the federal government’s agreement not to appeal the court order that the assessment be conducted.

“We do not agree with that, and now that Judge Lodge has agreed to hold the issue open while we make our arguments, we believe that is not sound,” Batt said.

But even if the judge disagrees, the government said at least 12 more shipments of Navy waste must be allowed to avoid jeopardizing national security.

Those shipments are composed of six from the Newport News shipyard in Virginia where the nuclear carrier, USS Nimitz, is to be refueled, four from a nuclear cruiser at an undisclosed location and one each from nuclear submarines, also at undisclosed locations.

The government claimed that without the additional shipments, the Nimitz’s return to action will be delayed, jeopardizing national security, and three boats scheduled for decommissioning would be turned into floating nuclear dumps - something the U.S. has severely criticized the Russians for doing with their nuclear ships.

Research needed to refine nuclear fuel for new generations of warships would also be impeded, although former Gov. Cecil Andrus, who started the confrontation over nuclear waste storage in 1988, consistently argued that there is already enough waste at INEL to conduct that research.

“We think there’s a legitimate question about whether the urgency exists,” agreed Batt, who repeated his pledge that he will accept new waste shipments only after significant progress is made toward opening a permanent dump outside Idaho, a deadline is set to begin moving waste out of Idaho and penalties are established for missing the deadline.

“We don’t accept empty promises, and we have not received those assurances,” said Batt, who has hardened his stand since suffering severe public criticism early this year for not fighting eight shipments the Navy had negotiated with Andrus in 1993.

“They have a job to do,” Batt acknowledged. “But you get involved in a contentious question like this, you don’t put absolute faith in your adversary.”