Judge Voids Cleanup Plan for Wastes at Bomb Plants
ASHINGTON, July 3 ・ The Energy Department's plan
for cutting billions of dollars and several years off the bomb-waste cleanup at
three government nuclear reservations is illegal, a federal judge has ruled,
because it would leave some of the wastes in shallow burial despite Congress's
prescription that they can be safely disposed of only in a deep "geologic"
repository.
The radioactive wastes are in tanks, many already rusting, at a reservation in Hanford, Wash., another near Aiken, S.C., and a third in Idaho.
The original plan was to clean out the tanks and, in preparation for transfer to a deep repository, solidify the wastes. But in 1999, facing major technical problems and cost overruns, the department issued internal rules allowing itself to redefine some unspecified percentage of the material as "incidental." This incidental waste was to be covered with a material much like cement and left behind in the tanks, under only a few feet of dirt.
Exactly how much of this radioactive waste was to be left behind is not clear. But Geoffrey H. Fettus, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, quoted from a government memorandum implying that it could have been in the tens of millions of gallons.
In any event, the judge's decision has overturned the department's approach. In the ruling, dated Wednesday and made public today, the judge, B. Lynn Winmill of Federal District Court in Boise, Idaho, said that the department's rules for reclassifying some of the wastes as incidental were based on little more than "whim" and that they violated a 1982 law requiring that high-level wastes be buried deep within the earth. Judge Winmill issued a summary judgment in favor of environmentalists, who were led by the Natural Resources Defense Council and supported by the three states where the reservations lie as well as by Oregon, whose border is close to Hanford.
Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said, "If this decision stands, it could lead to a tremendous burden on the taxpayers with respect to cost of cleanup, and jeopardize our ability to clean up our sites sooner."
But Mr. Davis said he did not have an estimate of how much more money and time would be required, and would not say whether the department would appeal the ruling.
Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, an environmental group in Boise that was among the plaintiffs, said, "There has been an attempt to cut corners and shave off dollars," and added: "We're not as interested in doing the job as quickly as possible with the least amount of money. We'd like to see it done right the first time, as safely as possible."
Joseph E. Shorin, an assistant attorney general of Washington State, said, "Our fear was that they were going to cut the cost and the duration of cleanup by sweeping the stuff under the rug, or leaving it under the rug." Mr. Shorin said the Energy Department had been planning by "semantic fiat" to leave in place material that Congress had determined was so dangerous that it had to be buried deep underground.
The Energy Department itself has announced many cleanup timetables over the years but had never made clear how much of the waste it would proceed with solidifying under its plan to exempt some of it. In general, though, the less solidified, the less time needed to complete the job. So the judge's decision does add years and billions of dollars to cleanup costs.
The case also pointed to a weakness in the government's broader plan for disposing of nuclear waste: burying it inside Yucca Mountain at a repository that the government is trying, in fits and starts, to open near Las Vegas. According to briefs filed by the government in the case, Yucca is too small for all the bomb wastes plus the civilian nuclear power wastes; the implication was that a requirement to put the military wastes in a deep hole would create the need for another repository.
There are 117 underground tanks at Hanford, storing about 53 million gallons of wastes that come from the production of nuclear bombs, but some of the liquids have already leaked into the soil and joined underground water that flows toward the Columbia River. There are an additional 34 million gallons at the South Carolina reservation, and 900,000 gallons more at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.