Idaho, Feds Still Slugging It Out Over N-Waste State Says U.S. Threatening To Suspend Cleanup If It Can’t Dump More Waste

The federal government has threatened to suspend nuclear waste cleanup if Idaho persists in challenging its decision that even more waste can be dumped safely at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, state attorneys told federal judges Thursday.

Because of that threat, the state’s brief to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declares, the government’s “ability to address the safety concerns and health threats posed by existing hazards at INEL is in doubt.”

The Navy has asked the appellate court to rule by this evening on its request to resume dumping waste at INEL immediately, claiming that if at least a dozen shipments are not made immediately, national security will be jeopardized.

It made arrangements with railroads on Wednesday - before the state even had had a chance to respond - to have a special train ready to leave Newport News, Va., this evening with six waste shipments on board. And six more shipments from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard could be on the rails by July 15.

On May 19, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, who took control of the long-running legal battle after the death this spring of U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan, ordered the ban on shipments remain in effect until he decides in September whether the environmental study of waste-management operations at INEL meets the requirements Ryan had laid out two years ago.

The Navy claims Lodge has no legal authority to keep the ban in place without forcing the state to show it has a chance of proving that the environmental study fails to assess health and safety problems at INEL adequately and therefore cannot be used to justify another 1,950 shipments - 165 tons - of high-level radioactive waste being dumped in eastern Idaho.

Lodge rejected Navy contentions that he acted without authority and said the state deserves time to put together its challenge of the document used by the government to warrant more dumping.

The state contends that document and the environmental study fail to adequately consider the safety and health hazards posed by the 261 tons of nuclear waste already stored at INEL.

Although the government is under a federal court order to clean up waste problems at INEL, Donald Macdonald of the Energy Department’s Idaho operations office advised an aide to Gov. Phil Batt on May 17 of 16 cleanup projects that would be held up if the court battle continues.

“All of the above projects, as analyzed in the environmental impact statement, have activities that are to occur in 1995 and 1996 that cannot proceed if in litigation,” Macdonald’s memorandum said.

At the top of the list was treatment of highly radioactive liquid waste that specifically is covered in the 1993 order signed by Ryan because it “poses a significant threat to human health and the environment.”

“Like many of the other environmental problems at INEL, schedules or processes are on paper to reduce the serious threat to the health of the citizens of Idaho posed by the highlevel liquid waste,” the state says. “But no real action has been taken.”

The state also cited the congressional drive to dramatically reduce spending for environmental cleanup at INEL and other federal sites and Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary’s public declaration that such cuts would undermine the protection of public health and the environment and “would prevent us from meeting our legally mandated requirements.”