Idaho Told To Get Tough On N-Waste State Needs To ‘Scream’ No About Taking Waste, Evans Says

Former Gov. John Evans says Idaho should “jump up and scream” in taking a tougher stance to keep the federal government from forcing its nuclear waste on Idaho.

“They’re just going to force it until Idaho kicks up a storm and says no,” he said.

Evans, president of D.L. Evans bank in Burley, has worked in Idaho politics for 34 years, and most of the time, the government has had “temporary” nuclear waste storage at eastern Idaho’s National Engineering Laboratory.

Evans was mayor of Malad, majority and minority leader of the Idaho Senate, lieutenant governor and governor from 1977-87. He lost a 1986 bid for the U.S. Senate to Republican Steve Symms.

“If we yield on the issue, they’ll send it all to us,” Evans said.

Since the 1950s the U.S. Navy has sent all its spent nuclear reactor fuel to INEL. Much of it remains stored in bins and pools over the Snake River Plain Aquifer.

Lawsuits, delays, National Guard troops on the railways or whatever it takes to keep the waste out should be done, Evans said.

Idaho’s young congressional delegation needs to put up strong protests to the nuclear waste shipments, he said. That’s something that Gov. Phil Batt did in his meeting last week with Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary and Batt’s decision to take court action against the federal government.

“It appears that Idaho is the weak link. We haven’t been forceful enough,” Evans said, while other states fight to keep waste out.

The ex-governor said Batt made a mistake at first, accepting promises from the Energy Department that waste would be stored temporarily in Idaho. “It’s broken promise after broken promise in the nuclear waste fiasco,” he said.