Batt: N-Waste Deal Is Closer Feds Want Significant Changes, But Governor Still Optimistic

Gov. Phil Batt was optimistic on Wednesday that a deal could still be struck to resume radioactive dumping in Idaho despite the Clinton administration wanting significant changes in the proposal he originally offered.

Batt said Assistant Energy Secretary Thomas Grumbly indicated the administration is willing to discuss the key points in dispute “and the negotiations will continue from here.”

“We should be able to determine in the next day or two whether we can reach an agreement,” Batt said. “I believe we can reach an agreement.”

Although refusing to be specific, the governor said the Energy Department’s counterproposal calls for substantially more than the 968 new waste shipments he would accept in return for a court-enforced guarantee that all high-level and most low-level waste be removed from Idaho by 2036.

And among those additional shipments, he said, is waste from commercial nuclear plants, which Batt has vowed the state would never voluntarily accept.

The Energy Department has also proposed to seriously weaken the scheme to enforce the deadline for removing waste from the state - a $100,000-a-day fine, adjusted for inflation, beginning on Jan. 1, 2036.

In addition, there remained some dispute over the federal government’s commitments under prior agreements for waste cleanup at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory - commitments apparently dealing with the schedule for solidifying millions of gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste now stored in enclosed vats in the ground.

Batt has said he would make minor adjustments but no substantive changes in the 11-page deal he called his final best offer two weeks ago.

Although the vast majority of Idaho voters are opposed to any new waste storage at the INEL, Batt pursued a deal when it became obvious to him that eventually Congress or the federal courts will ignore Idaho’s objections and mandate resumed dumping.

With a deal, he has argued, the state can at least limit new waste shipments and secure guarantees that all waste at INEL will be cleaned up and eventually removed.

His proposal at 968 shipments - 97 tons - covers fewer than half the shipments the Energy Department wants to dump at the INEL, where 261 tons of high-level waste and millions of cubic feet of low-level waste is already stored.