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Nuclear Waste Protested in Rockies
Wednesday January 12 12:55 PM ET
Nuclear Waste Protested in Rockies
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - Tatiana Maxwell was once taken by stroller to
protest missile silos growing like mushrooms across the prairie.
``We were a fringe family,'' she recalled. ``We were thought of as
communists and kooks.''
With her own kids now in strollers, Mrs. Maxwell has a new target: a
proposed nuclear waste incinerator that would be built 100 miles
upwind from Jackson, the 13,000-foot Tetons and Yellowstone National
Park, the nation's oldest.
Mrs. Maxwell and others fear that toxic particles from the eastern
Idaho incinerator will waft into Wyoming and lace the land and water
with toxic PCBs and radiation.
``It's mostly mother's instinct that it's not good for children or
other living things,'' said Mrs. Maxwell, who is pregnant with her
fourth child.
Mrs. Maxwell, along with Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, the Jackson
Hole Conservation Alliance and the Sierra Club, have sought an
injunction that would block the project near Idaho Falls, Idaho. The
project cost is estimated at $876 million to $1.2 billion.
In some respects, this is a tale of two cities: Jackson, a mountain
enclave of wealthy transplants and second-home owners that thrives on
tourism, and middle-class Idaho Falls, which has lived with
radioactive waste nearby for decades.
``I've lived here all my life, I've never seen anything different
than anyone else with industry like this,'' said Ralph Steele, a
commissioner for Idaho's Bonneville County. ``There've been some
accidents, but that's to be expected.''
Cal Ozaki, the project's deputy general manager, and many of the
plant's supporters who live on its doorstep, say fears like Mrs.
Maxwell's are overblown.
``I have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old, and if I thought that there
was anything that could harm their health or the environment, I
wouldn't be doing this,'' he said.
At the core of the controversy is 130,000 cubic yards of waste -
equivalent to about 31 football fields 3 feet deep - being housed at
the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
Half of the waste is supposed to go to the underground facility
outside Carlsbad, N.M., the nation's only long-term storage site for
radioactive waste.
The Department of Energy has contracted with British Nuclear Fuels
Ltd. to build a facility at the site that will compact up to 90
percent of the storage-bound waste and burn the rest. Burning will be
used for waste too laden with PCBs for storage in New Mexico or
containing materials too dangerous to ship.
Opponents say the government plans to allow the burning of waste that
contains about one metric ton of plutonium - ``approximately 166
times the amount of plutonium contained in the atomic bomb which was
dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II,'' according to the
lawsuit.
``The plutonium incinerator threatens to dump airborne radioactive
and hazardous wastes over Jackson, Wyo., and such national treasures
as Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Jedediah
Smith Wilderness Area,'' the lawsuit states.
For the most part, Idaho residents have been conspicuously quiet on
the issue, except to lash out at warnings that the incinerator could
contaminate the potato crop.
``I am confident in technology,'' said Fred Sica, Idaho Falls Chamber
of Commerce director. ``What we're really talking about here is that
we're providing a service to the rest of the country in a very safe
and manageable way.''
The anti-incinerator movement was born last summer in the scenic
Jackson Hole region of northwest Wyoming, where celebrities like
Harrison Ford have built second homes.
Opponents have the legal services of Jackson attorney Gerry Spence, a
charismatic Wyoming native famous for his victory over nuclear giant
Kerr-McGee in the Karen Silkwood whistleblower case.
Spence said Idaho residents have made a deal that could cost them
their health.
``It's a sad exchange, to exchange jobs and money and profit for the
potential danger involved in the case, for lives and sickness and
cancer and the loss of property,'' he said.
While some of the plaintiffs have suggested changing the laws on
transporting nuclear waste and burning PCBs, British Nuclear
spokeswoman Ann Reidesel said it's not that simple.
``It's important to look at the whole picture and make sure we are
not changing laws to make things more lax to solve a current
situation, and to keep in mind that the laws were put in place to
make things safer,'' she said.
The opponents claim the government broke several laws in approving
the project and failed to adequately notify Wyoming residents who
live downwind.
``If in fact this incinerator were to go ahead and people were to
realize that there were particles in the air that are extremely
hazardous, why would they choose to come here?'' asked Berte
Hirschfield, president of Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free. ``I think
there would be a mass exodus.''
According to a 1995 court settlement, the government must complete
the processing plant by December 2002. Construction could begin in
March if Idaho issues the final permits on time.
Mrs. Maxwell hopes the burning never begins.
``As a society, we did make all this waste and we do have to do
something with it,'' she said. ``But there is no indication from any
sources outside the DOE that incineration is an intelligent
thing to do.''
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