Batt Looks For Best Deal He Can Get Pact Sought Because Governor Knows Idaho Likely To Lose N-Waste Battle In The Long Run

Gov. Phil Batt’s taking a big political gamble in his negotiations with the federal government to allow another 968 shipments of nuclear waste to be dumped in eastern Idaho.

He knows that thousands of eastern Idaho jobs depend on the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. But Batt acknowledges that there’s little sentiment elsewhere in the state to allow more radioactive waste in.

But the governor is a pragmatic politician. He feels Idaho is likely to lose the battle in the long run so he’s looking for the best deal he can get.

Over time, Batt feels Idahoans should realize that getting rid of the nuclear waste from INEL, even if it takes decades, is worth the short-term risk of taking more.

In the talks with the Clinton administration, the most urgent question has been disposal of spent fuel from Navy warships and submarines.

The deal Batt proposed was to take 575 waste shipments from the nuclear Navy and another 393 shipments of non-military government waste through 2035. But only 24 Navy shipments can be made in 1995, 36 in 1996 and 20 a year after that. Overall, that’s not even half the waste the Energy Department wants dumped at INEL.

Some of the governor’s terms are tough for the federal government to swallow in view of the “not in my back yard” attitude that everybody has about nuclear waste.

His deal requires all waste at the INEL, the 261 tons already stored there and the 97 tons that would come in, would be moved to a storage site outside Idaho by the end of 2035. A daily fine of $100,000, adjusted for inflation, would be paid by the federal government beginning in 2036 until all stored waste has been removed.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the New Mexico dump for low-level, transuranic waste, would have to open by April 30, 1999, and taking waste from the INEL.

Idaho has won decisions from state judges blocking the Navy shipments. But Batt said it’s possible the government eventually will find a sympathetic judge who will order the shipments resumed.

And Congress is ready to vote to override the court order barring new waste shipments on the basis that national security will be in danger if the nuclear Navy can’t refuel its ships.

Batt and three of the four members of the state congressional delegation concede that Idaho can’t keep Congress from taking that action.

“I don’t think there’s any question that Congress will insist that we take the naval waste,” the governor said. “Nonmilitary nuclear waste might be another matter.”

Batt maintains that if people understand the deal, with the government guaranteeing to remove all waste over the next 40 years, they will realize that it will do more to protect the Idaho environment than anything else.

The fear of nuclear waste at INEL is tied to the Snake River Aquifer, the vast underground pool that is a major source of water for southern Idaho.

Nuclear opponents contend that long-lived radioactivity eventually will work its way into the underground water, which would be a major disaster for users.

Batt says people who live in western Idaho should be more worried about the government’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland because they live downwind from that installation.

As far as the INEL is concerned, the governor said, “This agreement does far more to correct that danger than anything we can do.”

It requires the highly radioactive liquid waste, now stored in huge tanks sunk into the ground above the aquifer, to be solidified and moved to an above-ground storage site away from the underground water source. The governor maintains that in the long term, that waste poses the biggest danger.

“I’ve done more to take away the fear that the aquifer will be polluted than we ever would have without it,” he said.