Nuclear Waste Ruling Won’t Be Challenged

The Clinton administration will comply with a court order and accept for disposal tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from civilian reactors.

Officials say, however, there’s no place to put it right now.

The U.S. Energy Department said Tuesday it will not challenge an appellate court ruling last July that directed the department to accept, beginning in 1998, spent nuclear fuel now stored at commercial reactors in 34 states.

Assistant Energy Secretary Thomas Grumbly acknowledged that the government cannot say now where it will put the used reactor fuel.

“Physically, we can’t take the waste,” he said.

Idaho Gov. Phil Batt maintains his state is the only one protected from becoming the dump site for that commercial waste because his unprecedented court-enforced agreement with the government on nuclear waste storage precludes it. But Batt’s critics contend his deal is a fraud.