Batt N-Waste Policy Faces New Challenge With Initiative Filing

Activist Peter Rickards took a new tack on Friday in his continuing crusade against Gov. Phil Batt’s policy on nuclear waste, filing an initiative he claims will force the administration to assure southern Idaho’s main water source is protected from radiation.

“I really feel in my heart that Governor Batt has been misinformed,” Rickards said.

He maintains the government intends to rebury nuclear material in cleaning up the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. State officials say that plan was abandoned long ago.

The Twin Falls podiatrist supported last fall’s unsuccessful challenge of Batt’s 1995 nuclear dumping deal with the federal government and failed in his attempt to subject the governor to a recall election shortly after Batt signed the agreement.

The governor declined any specific comment on Rickards’ proposition. But he reiterated his contention that his unprecedented agreement covers the key issue raised in the initiative and that waste cleanup standards dictated by the deal are more stringent than typically imposed by the government.

“I have insisted, and will continue to insist, that all environmental standards be followed,” Batt said within moments of Rickards filing the initiative with the secretary of state’s office.

“We are determined to hold the Department of Energy’s feet to the fire to accomplish that,” the governor declared.

The initiative will be reviewed by Attorney General Alan Lance over the next four weeks before being returned to Rickards with any suggested changes. Rickards will have three more weeks to decide whether to modify the initiative in response to Lance’s suggestions, and then Lance has two more weeks to assign formal ballot titles to the proposition.

Initial review of the initiative has led some officials to speculate that its unusual form probably makes it impossible to enact even if it were approved by voters. Rickards will have an opportunity to correct that if it is a problem.

The initiative purports to prohibit any state officials including the governor from agreeing to any waste cleanup plan that involves the reburial of even residual amounts of plutonium at INEEL.

It also attempts to require any applications for required air quality permits at the INEEL to include written analyses of potential accidents and the amount of radiation Idaho residents would receive as a result.

But Kathleen Trevor, who runs the state office that oversees operations at the eastern Idaho facility, said the Energy Department has essentially abandoned any plutonium reburial plans and if they are revived the state would strongly object to them as impermissible under the waste agreement.

If Rickards’ initiative survives the reviews over the next two months, he will have until July 6, 1998, to collect 41,335 registered voter signatures to win ballot status.