Editorial: State right in opposing burial plan

Friday, April 16, 2004 | 8:50 a.m.

On a 1,050-acre site in Fernald, Ohio, 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati, a uranium refinery operated from 1951 to 1989. Its finished product was used by the federal government to make nuclear weapons. In its 38 years of operation, the refinery managed to heavily contaminate every acre of its grounds and, to lesser extent, an area of 11 square miles. Since the refinery closed, a massive cleanup managed by the Energy Department has been under way. Congress ordered that all of the plant's high-level radioactive material be removed to secure sites that are under the control of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Impatient to finish the operation, which has been costing more than $260 million a year, the Energy Department concocted a plan to reclassify a large portion of the waste as low level and ship it to the Nevada Test Site.

We support the fight being waged by Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval to stop this plan, which could be put into motion by as early as next month if he's not successful. Sandoval correctly points out that the plan violates the Energy Department's own rules for disposing of the waste, in addition to violating federal law. The attorney general has given the Energy Department an ultimatum -- either notify Nevada by April 30 that the plan is off, or the state will seek "prompt judicial redress" in federal court.

If the Energy Department does not back off, we believe Nevada will have an unbeatable case -- providing there is any justice in the hostile world of nuclear waste disposal. The Nevada Test Site is not under the control of the NRC, which would seem to demolish the plan on its face. Also, the waste that the Energy Department now considers "low level" sits in three concrete storage silos. According to the Fernald Citizens Advisory Board, a group that documents information about the site for the public and whose voting members are area residents, the waste in the silos contain "the highest level of radioactivity at Fernald." Even more outrageous is the quantity of the waste in the silos -- 153 million pounds. Energy Department rules give it the authority to reclassify small amounts of waste. Certainly, 153 million pounds cannot be considered a "small amount."

For years Nevada has, in good faith, allowed quantities of low-level waste from Fernald to be secured at the Test Site. But from its fight against Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas where the Energy Department plans to bury the nation's high-level waste, Nevada has learned the department's unwritten credo: No amount of good faith will go unpunished. We hope the courts, if the state is forced to go there, will recognize that pattern too.