1'st WIPP shipment delayed

["Mario Iannaccone" <miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us>]

05:43 PM ET 03/12/99

N.M. Seeks Nuclear Shipments Delay

 N.M. Seeks Nuclear Shipments Delay
 By H. JOSEF HEBERT=
 Associated Press Writer=
        WASHINGTON (AP) _ New Mexico officials asked a federal judge
 Friday to block plans to begin shipping radioactive waste to an
 underground storage site in their state. The government agreed to
 keep the waste where it is while awaiting a ruling.
        The Energy Department is ready to make the first shipments of
 so-called ``transuranic'' radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation
 Pilot Plant in New Mexico as soon as possible, but state officials
 argued a state permit was required first.
        The state and four environmental groups asked U.S. District
 Judge John Garrett Penn to issue an injunction for waste shipments
 to the WIPP, as the site is commonly called, pending the state
 permit.
        ``If you can bring in the waste before the permit, we might as
 well not have a permitting process,'' Lindsay Lovejoy, the state's
 deputy attorney general, told the judge. He argued that by law the
 department needs the state permit to begin accepting shipments at
 WIPP near Carlsbad, N.M.
        To allow shipments now, he argued, would disrupt the permit
 process.
        But Justice Department attorneys maintained that the transport
 of 36 drums of waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also
 in New Mexico, does not require the state permit because the
 material, although radioactive, does not contain any toxic
 chemicals covered by the state hazardous waste law. And they
 contend the site, having been approved by the Environmental
 Protection Agency, has been cleared for waste shipments.
        The two sides have agreed that no wastes will be shipped for at
 least 11 days and Penn indicated that he would rule on whether to
 issue an injunction by then.
        Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson reiterated in
 testimony before a congressional committee on Friday that the
 administration remains opposed to construction of an interim
 storage site for high-level nuclear spent fuel in Nevada. Thousands
 of tons of the high-level waste remains at commercial nuclear power
 plants across the country.
        The administration contends an interim storage site would reduce
 the incentive for permanent burial of this waste at Yucca Mountain
 in Nevada where scientists currently are trying to determine if the
 geology there is suitable for long-term burial.
        High-level nuclear waste is largely spent reactor fuel, while
 the transuranic waste destined for WIPP is radioactive waste left
 over from federal weapons production such as clothing, tools, rags
 and other contaminated material.
        While the requested injunction on waste transport to WIPP would
 apply to only the Los Alamos shipments, the court decision likely
 also would affect Energy Department plans to begin taking
 radioactive wastes from its facility in Idaho. Under an agreement
 with Idaho the department has promised to begin taking wastes from
 there by April 30.
        Justice Department attorney Wendy Blake argued that the WIPP
 site is ``legally opened and determined to be safe'' and there is
 no reason to block the shipments.
        To the contrary, she maintained, delaying the shipments would
 set back the government's broader cleanup efforts at some two dozen
 sites were radioactive waste currently is held.
        Penn pressed Blake on what harm she could show if waste
 shipments were delayed until the end of the year when a state
 permit was likely to be approved, according to state officials.
        Blake said there was no assurance the state would issue a permit
 that soon and that the wastes pose a risk to the public and
 environment because the current temporary storage sites ``do not
 offer the level of protection that WIPP does.''
        Kevin Ward, an attorney representing four environmental groups
 that joined the state in seeking the injunction, countered that the
 Energy Department has never said the waste is not safe where it
 currently is being stored.
        The groups joining New Mexico in seeking an injunction were the
 Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund,
 the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, N.M., and
 the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, N.M.



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