Batt’s Optimism Fades Over N-Waste Governor Frustrated By Pattern Of Nearing Final Agreement On Inel Dumping Only To Have New Objections Raised By Feds

Gov. Phil Batt’s optimism last week that an agreement could be reached within days on resumption of nuclear dumping evaporated Wednesday as negotiations with the Clinton administration took yet another negative turn.

And state lawyers continued to focus on today’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, during which they hope to convince Lodge that the federal government followed faulty procedures in determining that more nuclear waste could be safely stored at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

While the state is optimistic that Lodge will force the Energy Department to redo its assessment of the environmental hazards from dumping more waste at INEL, Batt has expressed concern that eventually the government will prevail and shipments will resume.

That has been the driving force behind his attempt to concoct a deal that would limit the number of future shipments to about half what the government has been planning and still require, under court enforcement, that all high-level radioactive waste - new and old - and half the low-level waste be moved out of Idaho by 2036.

A month ago, it appeared the Energy Department was on the verge of making the deal as long as some details could be worked out. And just a week ago, Batt indicated that the talks that seemed to be dragging on interminably were about to produce a final product.

But the governor has become increasing frustrated by what seems to be a pattern of nearing final agreement on a specific provision only to have a new objection raised by federal lawyers at the last minute. It has reportedly resulted, as it apparently did on Wednesday, in heated exchanges during the telephone conferences that shut down further discussions for a period.

Batt has said that the final stumbling block to an agreement is how the waste removal mandate will be enforced against a federal government that has spent the last quarter-century doing little more than making and breaking promises and setting and missing deadlines on waste removal from INEL.

Some have argued that because nuclear waste management ultimately rests on money that is controlled by Congress, there is no way to guarantee that the Congresses a generation from now will come up with the cash to comply with the removal mandate. And that has left some state officials wondering whether any guarantee they get from the federal government is anything more than an empty promise.

In its legal challenge, the state contends that the government failed to follow the specific directive it was given in 1993 by the late U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan. Ryan suspended further waste shipments until a comprehensive analysis of all past, present and future waste management activities found storing even more waste at INEL could be done safely and was the best of all other options - including the option of shipping no more waste to Idaho.

The government claims it has followed that directive, that its conclusion is valid and that the state is simply nit-picking at technical matters in an attempt to foil a decision it does not like.

But the state argues that instead of doing the comprehensive analysis of INEL operations, the Energy Department did not assess the cumulative impact of all operations on the environment and public health.