INS Articles

["Potter, Charles" <capotte@sandia.gov>]

I've included two articles, the one mentioned by Brian Rees and the original
article on the decision from Feb 1.  Both are from the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Gus

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C. A. Gus Potter
Sandia National Laboratories
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 844-2750
capotte@sandia.gov 


Judge rules against city on radioactive-waste limits

By SHARYN OBSATZ/The New Mexican, The New Mexican - 2/1/2000

A federal judge has thrown out a Santa Fe city ordinance limiting the
radioactive waste that could be discharged into the city sewer system by a
local laundry that washed uniforms for Los Alamos National Laboratory.

U.S. District Court Judge Bruce D. Black ruled last week that cities have no
right to trump the state Environment Department by imposing stricter rules
on water pollution or nuclear discharge.

"The ordinance is an attempt by the city to usurp the authority to regulate
'liquid wastes,' 'radiation control' and 'hazardous wastes' that was
specifically granted to the New Mexico Environment Department," Black wrote
in his order.

The judge made a summary judgment in favor of the Interstate Nuclear
Services Corp., which had operated a laundry on Siler Road for more than 30
years.  Interstate sued the city in federal court in 1998, arguing the
ordinance would put the laundry out of business.

City councilors, responding to citizens' concerns about radioactive
discharge from the laundry, had passed the ordinance in 1997, setting
radionuclide discharge limits that were 50 times more strict than federal
and state requirements.

"The City Council is charged with protecting the health, safety and welfare
of our residents. It sounds like the court isn't allowing us to do that,"
City Councilor Chris Moore, who supports the ordinance, said about the
judge's ruling.  Moore said that, as a physicist, he didn't think the amount
of radioactive discharge from the laundry was harmful.  But having the
nuclear waste in the city's sewer system could hurt the public perception of
how safe it would be to use the treated wastewater to irrigate city parks or
private golf courses and polo grounds, he said.

"We live in a community where a lot of people are concerned about nuclear
issues. In order to save water, we have to use our effluent," Moore said.
"I think a community should have the right to set higher standards than the
state, especially when we want to assure people our effluent is safe."

City staff said having concentrated radioactive waste in the sludge at the
city's wastewater-treatment plant might hinder plans to begin selling the
sludge for use as fertilizer.

Several issues remain unresolved, including whether the laundry will reopen
and when.

And Interstate attorneys declined to say whether they now will ask the judge
to force the city to pay damages and legal fees.  Attorneys Gary J. Van
Luchene of Albuquerque and Jim Rehnquist of Boston declined to comment on
the judgment. Rehnquist's office issued a news release.

"We are pleased with the court's ruling," George Bakevich, general manager
for Interstate, said in the release.  "We have claimed from Day One that the
city strayed beyond its authority in enacting the ordinance, and we're
gratified that the court has agreed with us."

Santa Fe city spokesman Juan Ríos said city councilors will discuss the
city's options during a closed-door executive session at the Feb. 9 council
meeting.  Private attorneys Ellen Casy and Gary Larson of Hinkle Cox Eaton
Coffield & Hensley are handling the case for the city.

The laundry had washed uniforms for Los Alamos National Laboratory and other
federal institutions from 1962 until May 1996.

Since then, LANL has been sending its laundry to California, probably to
another Interstate facility, LANL spokesman Jim Danneskiold said.  He said
lab workers check the uniforms for radioactivity before sending them to be
washed.  Items found to have a radioactivity level of 20,000 disintegrations
per minute - less than one-third the radioactivity of the cloth mantel on a
camping stove - are discarded rather than washed, Danneskiold said.

Tests conducted a few years ago found that the level of radioactive material
in the Interstate laundry's wastewater was within the limits allowed by the
facility's state license, according to state officials.

Nathan Wade, Environment Department spokesman, said Santa Fe's ordinance
"was restrictive to the point of being unmeasurable.  "State requirements
are strict enough, Wade said. "We are confident that there are adequate
safeguards to protect human health and the environment."

In his ruling, Black cited previous cases in New Mexico where the state was
found to have total authority over water pollution and trash regulations.

"We're obviously disappointed," Randy Van Vleck, attorney for the New Mexico
Municipal League, said about the judge's decision in the Santa Fe case.
Local governments need some power to regulate their own communities, Van
Vleck argued.  "There needs to be some balance between having zero authority
and having carte blanche to regulate."




'Nuclear laundry' case offers costly lessons

Editorial, The New Mexican - 2/10/2000 Page A-7

It's a bold pose: City Councilors Cris Moore and Patti Bushee are "standing
by the decision" to impose unreasonably - and unconstitutionally - high
emissions standards on a "nuclear laundry."

That 1997 decision was made in the face of state environmental-department
approval of the laundry as it had been operating - and it put Interstate
Nuclear Services out of business in Santa Fe.

The company cleaned uniforms for Los Alamos National Laboratory; uniforms
already sorted out by the lab to assure low-level radiation.  INS sued the
city.  Last week, federal Judge Bruce Black issued a summary judgment that
the city couldn't impose stricter rules than the state did. 

The case could go on - but a settlement is likely.  It could cost Santa Fe
$3 million by the time the lawyers' fees are paid, and higher premiums to
cover another million the city's insurer might pay.

Still, the two anti-laundry ringleaders stand by their decision.  Easy for
them:  The money's not coming out of their pockets, at least no more than
for any other citizens who will foot this bill - about half the tab for the
purchase of the old St. Vincent Hospital, for which our strapped city is
scrambling to find the wherewithal.

More disturbing than today's refusal to admit a mistake, though, was the
blithe-spiritedness with which the City Council adopted the laundry
restrictions in the first place.

They were lobbied by the same activists who once threatened to throw their
bodies in front of trucks toting low-level nuclear trash from Los Alamos to
the Waste Isolation Pilot Project. 

Most disturbing was Councilor Moore's vote.  He holds a Ph.D. in physics,
and admits now that he knew all along that the laundry's radiation levels
weren't all that dangerous.  He refrained from sharing that view with his
fellow councilors - out of respect for folks who thought the laundry's
effluent might be dangerous; after all, the company's middle name is
"Nuclear" ...

So with the anti-nuke crowd cheering them on, and their resident scientist
guiding their thought, our councilors arbitrarily approved standards far
more stringent than those the state Environment Department imposed on New
Mexico's municipal sewers.

Decision-making of that kind has gotten Santa Fe sued seven ways from
sundown.  It has rendered City Hall nearly uninsurable - and to the extent
it is insured, municipal government has sacrificed open government to
secrecy dictated by its insurance companies.

So besides having nicely non-irradiated sewers, what else does Santa Fe get
for the $4 million?  Perhaps a lesson or two:

City councilors are chosen to learn about issues; to vote from their own
conscience, wisdom and knowledge - not just adopt the demands of the mobs.
To be sure, Santa Fe is full of knowledgeable and well-meaning individuals;
there's no shortage of folks willing to testify before the council.  Once
that's done, though, it's up to the officials we elect to make
well-considered decisions.

Those councilors also should be better served by the city's professional
staff than they were in this case.  They need the kind of legal advice that
might have anticipated Judge Black's concerns - and led to longer
deliberation than they gave this wasteful decision.

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