Nevada warns DOE on ground water

Monday, May 15, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

Nevada environmental officials say they will fine the Department of Energy $15,000 a week in 2002 if the DOE fails to request money to gather basic information on ground-water contamination at the Nevada Test Site.

The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection warned the DOE in a letter sent on May 10 that failing to ask for more money is a violation of a state-DOE agreement signed in 1996. The agreement requires the DOE to monitor the ground- water for contamination from 928 nuclear warhead experiments exploded at the Test Site from 1951 to 1992.

The DOE has already spent $176 million for ground-water monitoring since the mid-1990s, but its program to monitor for radiation contamination failed independent and state scientific reviews last year.

The state has asked the DOE to budget $40 million in 2002 to do more studies at the site, based on the department's own estimates of ground-water work needed.

The 2002 budget requests have been submitted to DOE headquarters without the money the state seeks, but not to Congress yet. DOE works on its budgets two years in advance.

Paul Liebendorfer, the state supervisor of federal facilities, told the DOE that its plan to monitor ground-water contamination at the Test Site "is no longer valid."

The state faulted the DOE for failing to supply basic information about ground-water amounts and direction, how and where radioactive contamination is migrating and what earthquake faults and cracks in the Test Site's rocks might do to the ground-water flow.

If the DOE fails to ask for more money in the 2002 budget, "they're telling us, 'We are out of compliance,' " Liebendorfer said. At that point the state could fine the DOE under the agreement signed in 1996. The penalties start at $5,000 for the first week, $10,000 for the second week, then $15,000 for the third week and beyond, he said.

If the DOE asks for the funds and Congress fails to approve extra money for 2002, the state is prepared to go to court, Liebendorfer said.

Carl Gertz, DOE's deputy environmental manager, said he had not received the state's letter yet, but he said it would be reviewed in depth.

Even though the 2002 budget has gone to DOE headquarters without the $40 million, the DOE's Nevada Operations Office plans to seek the money anyway, Gertz said. It will prepare a blueprint of studies requested by the state for defining ground-water contamination.

"It will say 'Here's how much money we think we need,' " he said.

The DOE is planning to ask for more money in the 2003 budget as well, which will be submitted in December.

"And we will aggressively pursue extra funds in the 2001 budget in front of Congress now," Gertz said.

Basically, it is a matter of setting priorities, Gertz said. He noted that the Test Site does not receive as much environmental cleanup funds as the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington state, probably the most contaminated DOE site in the nation, or Rocky Flats, Colo., where plutonium cores for the bombs were manufactured.

"We probably need more money or do less of something else," Gertz said of the DOE's review of its ground-water monitoring program.

Mary Manning covers environmental issues for the Sun. She can be reached by phone at (702) 259-4065 or by e-mail at manning@lasvegassun.com.