Tacoma Not Likely To Be Nuclear Port, Dicks Says

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks says he feels Tacoma will be dropped from the short list of 10 U.S. ports being considered to receive highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Dicks, D-Wash., met Thursday with Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Thomas Grumbly. He told Grumbly the Tacoma port was the wrong site to receive nuclear shipments.

“Tacoma looks very safe right now,” Dicks said Friday. “I feel very confident that Tacoma won’t be picked for a site.”

Reached at home Friday evening, Grumbly wouldn’t say whether Tacoma is unofficially off the list.

That decision won’t be made until a final environmental study is released in August, he said. Public comment on the plan ends July 20.

“On the basis of what we heard from Tacoma and other places, we’re seriously re-examining whether any of the West Coast ports make sense for us,” Grumbly said.

Grumbly indicated the pressure on the Energy Department to find ports was recently eased when a U.S. appellate court ruled that nuclear waste could be shipped through a South Carolina port on an emergency basis.

In fact, most of the waste targeted for shipment over the next 13 years would probably come through East Coast ports anyway, he added. Of the 10 ports, six are on the East Coast. One is in Texas.

The Energy Department is also looking at other West Coast military ports - currently not on the list - as possible sites for the shipments, Grumbly said.

The favored alternative by the Energy Department is to bring the material back and store it at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory or Savannah River facilities in South Carolina, the only sites that have space for it.