Governor Seeks Study Of Quake Risk At Inel At Issue Is Safety Of N-Waste Storage

Gov. Phil Batt will ask the Department of Energy to finance an independent study of earthquake risks at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

Batt on Tuesday announced his intent to seek the agency’s help one day after Idaho’s two U.S. senators said they would push for money for a study if the governor or some other top state official asked them.

The request will be made Tuesday at a meeting in Idaho Falls between the state’s INEL Oversight Program and the Department of Energy, said Bob Ferguson, Oversight Program administrator.

Ferguson will ask for up to $350,000, enough for at least two years of seismograph monitoring installed in an existing 10,000-foot hole near the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant.

“I expect to get the money somehow, some way,” Ferguson said. “Just where and how I don’t know yet.”

But, he added, John Wilcynski, manager of Energy’s Idaho operations office, has signaled in a letter that he may reverse his earlier opposition to spending money on such a project.

“Who knows why he changed his mind. I have not talked to him directly,” Ferguson said.

Wilcynski earlier rejected requests to pay for any studies of a theory questioning whether the INEL is safe from major earthquakes.

The nuclear-waste storage and research complex is within 15 miles of a series of three major fault lines, making it one of the most seismically active regions in the nation.

The INEL’s theory, developed in 1990, is that horizontal layers of basalt rock and loose sediments under the site would absorb energy from a big tremor, like a layer cake. Instead of radiating toward the surface, the energy would dissipate harmlessly outward.

It was questioned in an October 1995 assessment by James Zollweg of Boise State University and Kenneth Sprenke of the University of Idaho. In a report for the state INEL Oversight Program, they recommended further research in light of computer modeling that suggested the basaltsediment layer could actually intensify earthquake ground motion under INEL.