Judge Delays N-Waste Hearing Once Again, Optimism Renewed That Deal Between Feds, Idaho Can Be Reached
U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge delayed Thursday’s hearing on the state’s challenge to claims more radioactive waste can be safely dumped in Idaho amid renewed optimism that a deal can be worked out between the Batt and Clinton administrations.
After meeting privately with attorneys for both sides, Lodge agreed to reschedule the hearing for Monday afternoon “because of the ongoing negotiations and their sensitive nature and the fact that there appears to be the possibility of a resolution.”
Gov. Phil Batt declined to predict a deal would be finalized in the next four days.
“We’re still discussing a couple of points,” Batt said. “There’s still an amount of intransigence on both sides, but I think we’ll reach an agreement. … Whether it occurs by Monday, I don’t know.”
The major stumbling block, the governor said, remains enforcing the agreement so it does not become another empty promise from a federal government with a 25-year history of breaking promises and missing deadlines on nuclear waste management at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
Lodge had set the hearing to probe more deeply the state’s claim that the Energy Department used faulty procedures in determining that another 165 tons of highly radioactive waste could be safely stored at the INEL, where 261 tons has already been dumped.
The state also disputes the contention of the Navy that even if the safety analysis is faulty, national security justifies the resumption of waste shipments from nuclear warships to the INEL.
The federal government wants to bring another 1,940 nuclear shipments into the state over the next 40 years as part of its plan to temporarily store radioactive waste from not only military but also commercial and research sources until a permanent dump is created.
Batt has been confident that Lodge will agree that a new safety assessment should be done. But he has expressed concern that waste shipments to the INEL will eventually resume, and that has driven his effort to cut a deal with the government that would essentially keep commercial waste out of the state and guarantee that all high level waste at INEL old and new - and the half the low-level waste be removed from the state in 40 years.
That would make the INEL the only Energy Department facility with a court-enforceable ban on commercial waste storage - something Batt considers critical since the federal government must beginning moving tons of commercial waste off nuclear power plant sites in February 1998.
But negotiations toward that agreement have dragged on for more than a month, and while Batt has declined to discuss specifics of the developing deal, some of its provisions have been outlined.
At this stage, the plan calls for the state to accept more than 1,000 shipments - slightly higher than the 963 Batt originally included in his offer. But none of that waste is from commercial sources, the governor has said.
He also said on Thursday that the state agreed to fines for failing to remove all waste by 2036 below the $100,000 a day, adjusted for inflation, that Batt included in his original proposal.
But he indicated the state would not give on its demand that various milestones be met over the next four decades in removing or processing waste at INEL or further shipments would immediately cease.
“It has been the subject of disagreement,” Batt said. “I think it’s in the process of being resolved.”
Many see halting new shipments if the government fails to meet specific removal or processing deadlines as the key element that gives a deal the kind of value the federal government’s past promises have lacked.
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