7 States Decline Requests to Take Nuclear Waste

The Bush Administration found no takers Wednesday for its plan to send excess radioactive waste from the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant to seven states in order to avert a possible plant shutdown.

“No sale,” Washington Gov. Booth Gardner said after receiving a telephone plea from White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu and a personal visit from Mike Lawrence, manager of the Hanford weapons plant near Richland. That plant is among eight sites in the seven states sought as “interim” holders of the Rocky Flats waste.

Most of the seven--Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington--had indicated earlier this week they would not accept any of the waste, which contains plutonium that remains radioactive for 240,000 years.

South Carolina Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. said through a spokesman that while he was willing to listen to any proposals, “we certainly do not want to receive more waste” at the Savannah River nuclear weapons site near Aiken, S.C.

The Administration has said that closing Rocky Flats would amount to unilateral nuclear disarmament since it is the sole maker of plutonium triggers for warheads.

Colorado Gov. Roy Romer has vowed to shut down Rocky Flats, which is 16 miles from Denver, if waste stored in plant buildings exceeds 1,600 cubic yards. The Energy Department estimates that limit will be topped by March 1.

The department had expected to have a permanent repository near Carlsbad, N.M., ready by this fall to store the Rocky Flats waste, but a series of technical and regulatory setbacks has delayed the repository’s opening until at least July.

In an unusual move, Sununu telephoned the governors to ask for their cooperation and to stress that national security was at stake, said Phil Keif, a spokesman for the Energy Department.