" Court rejects group's challenge, letting WIPP shipments continue "

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA>]

NUCLEONICS WEEK JULY 8, 2004

Court rejects group's challenge, letting WIPP shipments continue



A federal court last week dismissed an environmental group's claim that

transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, allowing

those shipments to continue.

The U.S. District Court of New Mexico's June 30 decision ends court

consideration of a five-year-old lawsuit against DOE. The group, Citizens

for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping (CARD), filed the case two days

before WIPP received its first transuranic waste shipment March 26, 1999.

The transuranic waste repository is carved out of an ancient salt formation

outside Carlsbad, N.M.

According to CARD, the disposal facility posed a risk to the public health

and safety and to the environment.

However, the court noted that CARD had not proved its claim and NEPA

required that DOE consider conflicting opinions on WIPP but that the act

didn't preclude the department from proceeding as planned.