Editorial: Don’t dump nuke waste at Test Site

Thursday, July 24, 1997 | 9:37 a.m.

Groups supporting a low-level radioactive disposal site at Ward Valley, near Needles, Calif., fumed over the Department of Interior's refusal to release federal land for the final step of the process.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt delayed progress on the California dump a year ago after serious questions were raised about radioactivity escaping from the closed site at Beatty, once run by US Ecology, the same company that wants to operate Ward Valley.

Ward Valley is less than 20 miles from the Colorado River, a major drinking water source for the Southwest, and Babbitt wanted assurances radioactive leaks won't go in the river.

But nuclear proponents refuse to wait for science. The impatient California Radioactive Materials Management Forum, known as Cal Rad, went to Energy Secretary Federico Pena last week, pleading to dump low-level nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site and at Hanford, Wash.

Cal Rad represents nuclear utilities and industries, such as General Electric, Southern California Edison Company, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the Arizona Public Service Company and Southern California Public Power Authority -- all companies producing nuclear energy in aging reactors.

A recent study said up to 95 percent of the proposed Ward Valley wastes would come from nuclear power, not contaminated clothing or lab materials.

When Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., heard about the idea of dumping commercial nuclear wastes at the Test Site and at Hanford, he didn't hesitate.

The senator said he picked up the phone and called Pena, who has assured Bryan no commercial wastes will come to the Test Site.

After all, the Test Site is already under fire. Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska and other nuclear cheerleaders want the former nuclear proving ground to become a dumping ground for high-level nuclear reactor wastes while studies continue at neighboring Yucca Mountain for a permanent radioactive grave.

What the nuclear industry and others forget is why the Nevada Test Site exists.

First and foremost, the site must remain ready to reactivate nuclear testing if the president orders it. No one expects nuclear bomb blasts tomorrow, since the U.S. is party to a Comprehensive Test Ban working its way toward approval among governments around the world.

But the first mission at the Test Site is to remain ready as an experimental ground for weapons. Not a nuclear garbage dump.

Second, the Test Site is owned and operated by the federal government. It's not an open garbage pail for commercial interests whether they are nuclear utilities, nuclear laboratories or researchers.

Third, studies at Yucca Mountain will not be complete for years, so whether it ever becomes a permanent nuclear waste dump remains in serious question. Imagine moving all that waste to the Test Site, then moving it back again across the nation, if and when Yucca Mountain is not proven safe.

Another blow to nuclear proponents came Tuesday.

No one mentioned the Test Site or any other possible dumping ground, temporary or otherwise, during a Senate Energy Committee hearing on the future of the Ward Valley site.

In case anyone hasn't heard, President Clinton has vowed to veto any congressional efforts at temporary nuclear waste storage at the Nevada Test Site until Yucca Mountain studies are done. He promised last year. He put it in writing this year.

This sudden interest to cram radioactive waste down somebody's -- anybody's -- throat shows a desperation by nuclear industrialists. They fear competition under utility deregulation.

And if they don't prove they can deliver nuclear-generated electricity that can compete with other sources, they're stuck with enough debt to sink the industry.

Wouldn't it be convenient if taxpayers, not nuclear ratepayers, had to pick up the tab for the most expensive part of this folly, namely nuclear waste? That is exactly why this rush to dump and dump anywhere.

So the nuclear industry has created a crisis in the hope that someone will take the burden off its hands. Too bad. Nuclear power companies cried "wolf!" once too often. And no one is willing to listen to them anymore.