Nuclear Fuel Rods Rerouted to Virginia

Facing the prospect of a protracted lawsuit and continued local opposition, federal officials Thursday announced that they were abandoning attempts to unload highly radioactive nuclear waste from Taiwan at the Port of Long Beach or at other West Coast ports.

Instead, a Department of Energy spokesman said, the waste will be shipped through Portsmouth, Va., for eventual reprocessing.

The shipment of 48 spent fuel rods from a nuclear power plant was rerouted because of a pending lawsuit in federal District Court filed in May by a coalition of Washington state environment and labor groups, said Energy Department spokesman Jack Vandenberg.

Portsmouth was selected because it has received nuclear waste for years, Vandenberg said.

In the lawsuit, the Northwest Inland Waters Coalition sought to bar four western seaports, including the ports of Seattle and Long Beach, from receiving nuclear waste until the Department of Energy made a thorough environmental impact study, coalition spokesman Tom Buchanan said.

Initially, federal officials had sought permission to ship the nuclear waste through the Port of Los Angeles, but they were quietly rebuffed by Los Angeles officials.

Then the Energy Department angered Long Beach officials and residents in January when it announced that it would bring 18 shipments of used fuel rods through Long Beach Harbor beginning in March, intending to have the waste transported by truck from Long Beach to South Carolina for reclamation.

But Long Beach port officials, responding to protests from civic and anti-nuclear groups, refused in January to allow the Energy Department to unload the fuel rods in Long Beach. State and local officials, including Gov. George Deukmejian, joined them in opposing the plan.

The shipment to Portsmouth is under way and will arrive during August, Vandenberg said. He declined to elaborate. A decision has not been made on where future shipments of foreign waste will enter America for reprocessing, Vandenberg said.

Federal policy allows countries that use American-made fuel rods in their nuclear plants to return them for reprocessing.

Vandenberg would not say where the nuclear fuel rods originated, although a March 27 Nuclear Regulatory Commission report said the Energy Department was seeking permission to route nuclear waste from Taiwan through the West Coast. Vandenberg would only say that the spent rods were from a research nuclear reactor.

“It’s the government’s position that timely removal of this fuel is useful in pursuing our non-proliferation (of nuclear weapons) goals,” Vandenberg said.

Local officials and environmental groups expressed mixed reactions to the decision.

“I’m delighted, it’s very good news,” said James McJunkin, executive director of the Long Beach port.

McJunkin said he was disappointed that the federal government did not notify him of the change in plans, but he said federal officials were being consistent, because they did not notify port officials before announcing plans to ship nuclear waste to Long Beach.

“We still remain adamantly opposed to handling” nuclear waste, McJunkin said.

“It’s very encouraging to see that public concern can affect government policy, and it’s wonderful to see that the unnecessary risk of driving this waste across the country will be eliminated,” said Steven Aftergood, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap, an anti-nuclear group that claims credit for shutting down the UCLA nuclear reactor in 1984.

Buchanan, spokesman for the Washington coalition that sued the federal government over the shipments, said he would not be surprised if future shipments were targeted for West Coast ports.

“They (Energy Department officials) are trying to make an end run (by going to the East Coast),” Buchanan said, adding that federal officials have not addressed the major concern raised in the group’s lawsuit, which is the safety of transporting nuclear waste by sea.

Buchanan charged that it was hypocritical for federal officials to say that accepting the waste will promote non-proliferation of nuclear weapons because the rods will be “reprocessed to make more nuclear weapons.”

Vandenberg declined comment, but said the nuclear waste will be reprocessed at an Energy Department plant in Savannah River, S.C., which reclaims the material for use in nuclear weapons.