U.S. Settles Lawsuit Over Nuclear Weapons Cleanup

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Monday December 14 5:05 PM ET 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy Monday 
settled a lengthy court battle with environmental activists Natural 
Resources Defense Council, partly by agreeing to establish a 
$6.25 million fund for outside reviews of the agency's nuclear 
weapons site cleanup programs.  

The deal was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Stanley 
Sporkin in Washington D.C., ending an eight-year legal dispute 
over how the public should be informed of DOE efforts to clear its 
nuclear weapons sites of radioactive and toxic wastes.   

DOE said the settlement ends a 1997 NRDC lawsuit, which alleged 
the agency should be held in contempt of a 1990 consent order for 
failing to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement 
on its nuclear-related environmental restoration programs.   

To assuage NRDC complaints, the DOE agreed to create three 
new programs for better informing the public on cleanup operations 
at former nuclear weapons complex sites:  

- DOE will establish a central information database, available on 
the Internet on radioactive and nonradioactive waste and 
contaminated facilities at agency sites. Within the next six 
months, the first in a series of public forums will be held to explain 
how citizens can use the information and to explore more Internet 
links to other agency databases;   

- DOE will start a $6.25 million fund to assist citizens' groups and 
tribes in conducting technical and scientific reviews of 
environmental management activities. The resulting technical 
reports, which must be performed by credentialed scientists, will 
be available to the public;   

- And, the agency will seek public comment for a study of the long-
term surveillance and maintenance at DOE sites following cleanup. 
 

``Instead of litigating, the DOE, NRDC and the other environmental 
groups who were participants in the lawsuit have agreed to work 
together to improve the availability of information about DOE's 
environmental management program through the Internet and to 
support independent scientific and technical analysis for 
stakeholders,'' said Mary Anne Sullivan, DOE general counsel.  

NRDC said in a press release that previous to the just-announced 
settlement, the DOE was told by Judge Sporkin that he expected 
the agency to abide by its 1990 commitments to conduct the 
environmental analysis.  

DOE denied it struck a settlement to avoid being held in contempt 
and said new programs ``stand on their own merit'' as
important tools for the public to access existing databases.

Sullivan said the expense of the three news programs would be 
limited mainly to the $6.25 million fund, since the databases are 
already maintained for internal agency use.  

DOE hopes that by opening its scientific and technical analysis to 
review, the process would become less contentious.

``We think when people are better informed about our work, they 
are more likely to agree with us,'' said Sullivan. 

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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