Joining of nuke lawsuits requested

Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001 | 11:25 a.m.

The Department of Energy has asked a federal court to combine 14 nuclear waste storage lawsuits brought by electrical utilities so that a single judge can hear the case.

The current cases are divided among 10 judges who will hear the nuclear utilities' claims for damages after the DOE failed to remove radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants in January 1998, as planned.

But the DOE has not finalized a site, let alone built a repository to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear wastes. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site under study.

Nuclear storage at Yucca, if it is found to be a scientifically acceptable site, would not begin until 2010.

The Yucca Mountain project is being investigated by both the DOE's inspector general's office and the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, after the Sun obtained internal DOE documents revealing a bias by the agency in favor of the nuclear industry in creating a repository at Yucca. By law the DOE is supposed to be neutral.

The DOE filed its motion for consolidation with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Monday.

The latest motion is another step in the lengthy legal battle waged by nuclear power plants to force the DOE to remove more than 40,000 tons of spent fuel stored at more than 100 nuclear reactor sites nationwide.

Federal courts have decided in the past year that the DOE failed to accept wastes under contracts sealed when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

The DOE offered to take liability for the wastes at reactor sites in 1999, but the industry refused the offer.

In August the federal Court of Appeals rejected the DOE's argument that utility complaints could be addressed through an administrative process, a lengthy procedure by the DOE. The court invited all nuclear utilities to pursue damage claims in court.

The nuclear industry has estimated the government's total liability could reach $50 billion or more, but the DOE maintains its financial responsibility is much less.

If all the claims are combined before a single judge, a trial would result to set damages.