Followup to CA vs. USA - LLW

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@ix.netcom.com>]

Additional information regarding the battle between California and 
the US Interior Dept. regarding LLW burial site in CA. This 
information was provided by the Reuters News Service.

---------------
  SAN FRANCISCO  - The state of California sued  
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt Friday to try to force him to 
hand over federal land for a proposed low-level radioactive 
waste dump, officials said. 
  The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington  
D.C., is the latest move in a long-running dispute between 
California Gov. Pete Wilson and the Clinton administration over 
proposals to build the dump at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert 
of southern California. 
  In February last year, the Interior Department asked for  
more environmental study before it transferred the land. It said tests
would be carried out on whether radioactive material at the site could
penetrate to groundwater near the Colorado River, which supplies
millions with drinking water. 
  But the Wilson administration said the Interior Department  
has failed to move ahead with the tests. 
  Meanwhile, the state said, low-level radioactive waste --  
produced by hospitals, universities and biotechnology companies 
-- must either be stored on-site at dozens of locations 
throughout the state or shipped to South Carolina. 
  In a letter to Babbitt informing him of the lawsuit, Wilson  
accused the federal government of delaying tactics. 
  ``I no longer believe your department intends to complete  
this transfer under any circumstances, regardless of what risks 
this refusal presents to public health and safety,'' Wilson, a 
Republican, said. 
  The California Department of Health Services and its  
director, Kim Belshe, filed the suit against Babbitt, the U.S. 
Interior Department and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 
seeking to force them to hand over the land. 
  California is legally bound to provide a waste facility to  
serve low-level waste producers in California, Arizona and North and
South Dakota. Some environmentalists have protested the selection of
the Mojave Desert site. 
  Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap,  
a group opposed to the Ward Valley dump, said Wilson's action 
was ``a shameful attempt to block ongoing environmental study by the
federal government of whether this proposed project would endanger the
public.'' 
  According to the lawsuit, then Interior Secretary Manuel  
Lujan, following extensive environmental study, issued a 
''record of decision'' in January 1993 approving the transfer of the
Ward Valley land to California. 
  But Deputy U.S. Interior Secretary John Garamendi said that  
in the last days of President George Bush's administration a 
judge issued an order preventing Lujan from transferring Ward 
Valley to California. 
  ``The Clinton administration has been addressing unresolved  
questions surrounding the transfer ever since. Now Gov. Wilson 
apparently wants to go back to the discredited approach of 
former Secretary Lujan,'' Garamendi said. 
  Wilson told Babbitt the Interior Department could not be  
relied upon to objectively conduct testing at Ward Valley. So he said
he had ordered the state Department of Health Services to immediately
begin additional tests at the site, as recommended by the National
Academy of Sciences in 1995. 
  He asked Babbitt to order the Bureau of Land Management to  
remove protesters, who have set up a permanent camp near the 
proposed waste dump site, so that testing can begin. 

Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax: (714) 668-3149

E-Mail: sandyfl@ix.netcom.com    

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