Safety Before Expediency

Once the United States is able to agree on where to dump its high-level nuclear waste, that site must safely contain the radioactive junk for thousands of years. This is about as close to “forever” as anything the U.S. government ever is likely to do.

In spite of that, the Senate has voted preliminary approval, 63 to 30, for a bill sponsored by Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) and supported by the nuclear power industry that would accelerate the schedule for picking the site for a nuclear waste depository by about five years. The effect of the Johnston legislation, several western senators contend, is to put the waste in the Nevada desert and to abandon study of other proposed sites in Texas and Washington state.

Nevada ultimately may be determined to be the best repository of spent fuel rods from the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants, but under terms of the Johnston bill, that might never be known. Present law provides a thorough study of the three candidate sites and then the selection of the most appropriate one by 1994. Johnston would go ahead with testing of the Nevada site only. If it was found acceptable to the Department of Energy by January, 1989, that is where the waste would be stored. As a bonus, or consolation prize, the state would receive a payment of $100 million a year. Rep. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is correct when he says, “They cheated. Whatever the price, we do not want it.”

The better alternative is a proposal by Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.) providing for a suspension of the existing siting process, which has been botched by the Department of Energy, while an independent commission studies the problem. Johnston complains that the present selection system is too costly. The nuclear industry makes the same complaint about Udall’s moratorium. The more persuasive argument, however, comes from Rep. John Breaux (D-La.): “This is the most critical environmental decision in the history of our nation. We should not make it until we have the critical information we need.”