Still No Settlement On Nuke Waste Shipments Talks On Resuming Dumping In Idaho Fail To Reach Agreement Among Gov. Batt, Feds And The Navy

With pressure mounting for an agreement, Gov. Phil Batt said Thursday that negotiations were continuing with the Navy and the U.S. Department of Energy on resumption of nuclear waste dumping in Idaho.

No settlement was reached during nine hours of what Batt called “very intense” talks in Minneapolis on Wednesday with Adm. Bruce DeMars, head of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, and Energy Department Undersecretary Thomas Grumbley. Lawyers continued the effort Thursday.

The governor said no additional high-level meetings were planned for now.

“I would not preclude that, but neither would I say it’s a certainty,” Batt said.

He has termed his last two meetings with Navy and Energy Department brass final attempts to win an enforceable deadline from the government for removing any new waste shipped to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

Batt said again on Thursday that before the state agrees to lift its court challenge and accept additional shipments, he also must be convinced cleanup of existing waste at the INEL will continue and that jobs and economic opportunities will be protected at the Energy Department site.

“Those three principles are uppermost on our minds at the negotiations. We have not reached a solution which to me has been satisfactory,” he said.

“I very much would like to have this matter settled. … I wish we had other things on our plate, but we do not have. We will continue to diligently pursue this matter until it reaches a resolution of some kind.”

However, that resolution might be forced on the state when Congress votes next month on an appropriations bill with a provision authorizing the Navy to resume waste shipments to the INEL on Oct. 1. The Navy contends national security is at risk unless it is allowed to immediately resume shipping spent nuclear reactor fuel to the INEL.

The only requirement in the appropriations bill provision is that Defense Secretary William Perry certify goodfaith negotiations failed to secure the state’s approval.

Both Batt and Attorney General Alan Lance said Thursday that the negotiations so far have been conducted in good faith by both sides.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge will decide in late September or October on the state’s challenge to the government’s conclusion that another 1,940 shipments - 165 tons - of high-level radioactive material can be safely dumped at the INEL during the next 40 years. The state claims the analysis was inadequate.

About 600 of the 1,940 shipments are Navy waste. The rest involve commercial and non-military waste owned by the Energy Department.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also will hear arguments in mid-September in Seattle on the Navy’s request for authority to immediately ship 24 loads of waste to Idaho.

The Navy contends in arguments for modifying Lodge’s May 19 injunction on waste shipments that two dozen are needed now to allow refueling of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and the decommissioning of a nuclear-powered cruiser and five submarines.

“Admiral DeMars feels a great urgency in getting the material moved off the ships, out of the ports,” Batt said. “The admiral is very concerned about refueling his ships, and he is going to make a very strong case to Congress that they have to proceed with this, regardless of Idaho’s intentions or desires. And consequently I think there is a real possibility that Congress will order us to take at least limited amounts of naval material.”