Nuclear Dump Denounced at State Hearings : Environment: Opponents of the proposed desert site say taxpayers could be stuck with any cleanup costs. Supporters, who are heavily outnumbered, say the facility is needed for low-level scientific waste.

Warning of environmental devastation, fiscal ruin and other calamities, an army of angry protesters turned out in three California cities Monday night to attack plans by the state to open a low-level radioactive waste dump on a wind-swept patch of desert in San Bernardino County.

Testifying at hearings in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Needles, a diverse group of critics charged that state officials are closing their eyes to flaws in the proposed dump’s location and design and argued that California taxpayers could be forced to foot the bill for millions of dollars in cleanup costs if the facility leaks.

In Needles, a tiny city on the Colorado River just 22 miles from the proposed dump site, the concerns were decidedly personal. “Someday,” said local high school junior J. T. Thomas, 17, “I want to raise a family here. . . . I don’t want to worry about my children glowing in the dark.”

Supporters of the facility, heavily outnumbered at the hearings, countered that the dump is desperately needed by specialists in nuclear medicine and said opponents are making alarmist claims that have little foundation in truth.

Elaine M. Bild, director of legislative analysis and environmental policy for the University of California, said a place must be found for the 300 tons of low-level radioactive waste generated by university research each year.

Bild, testifying in Los Angeles, called such research “vital to public education” and said the patch of San Bernardino County desert is “probably the best site in the country” for the dump.

Needles warehouse worker Gary Johnson, 44, agreed. “The waste has to go somewhere,” Johnson said shortly before the hearing that drew a standing-room-only crowd to the high school gymnasium in his hometown.

Johnson added that he trusts U.S. Ecology, the much-maligned firm seeking to build the dump, and called a group of noisy Greenpeace activists from Los Angeles and San Diego “promoters of fear.”

The state Department of Health Services is expected to decide by this fall whether to grant U.S. Ecology a license to build and operate the dump in Ward Valley, a desolate slice of the Mojave Desert west of Needles. If a license is granted, the 70-acre facility could be operating by January, making California the first state in a generation to open such a dump.

Waste destined for the facility would include radioactive material used in medicine, scientific research and industry, as well as tools and other hardware from nuclear power plants. It would not include the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods used to power reactors.

Both the Needles and Los Angeles hearings were tumultuous, accented by hisses and boos from the crowds.

“No, no, no, no,” yelled Needles High School students and environmental activists as they stomped on the gymnasium bleachers with the intensity of a crowd rooting at a basketball game.

A small number of Needles residents showed their support for the facility by wearing U.S. Ecology baseball caps.

Earlier in the day, demonstrators highlighted their opposition to the dump at a series of news conferences around the state. At a Sacramento news conference, Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae) revealed that the chairman of the House Interior Committee, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), has agreed to investigate the proposed facility.

“Let’s make a stand here and now and not add Ward Valley to the long list of preventable environmental tragedies from Three Mile Island to the Exxon Valdez,” Boxer said in a prepared statement.

In Los Angeles, about 50 politicians, anti-nuclear activists and Hollywood personalities--among them actors Ed Begley Jr., Susan Clark, Peter Horton and Melanie Mayron--joined in describing the perils allegedly posed by the dump.

Begley predicted that the facility eventually would leak, threatening an underground water source: “Basically, gravity always wins,” he said. “It always has. It always will.”

In Needles, about 25 Greenpeace activists marched through downtown streets in the 108-degree heat. Hoisting signs with slogans like “Landfills Kill” and “Low-Level Means High Risk,” the protesters were greeted with honks of support from townspeople in pickup trucks, as well as a couple in a car towing a speedboat.

More than 200 people--ranging from high schoolers on skateboards to elderly retirees--attended a rally just before the Needles hearing. Steve Lopez, a spokesman for the nearby Ft. Mojave Indian tribe, said the dump threatens to poison land his people consider sacred.

“For us to have this unnatural project in a natural land that is sacred to us just doesn’t go,” said Lopez, who is particularly concerned about the dump’s threat to the underground aquifer. “I’d rather have a nice drink of clean water than a pocket full of gold.”

Opposition to the $40-million facility has been building over the past several months. In addition to raising assorted environmental questions, critics have argued that unlike generators of hazardous waste, generators of nuclear waste are exempt from any liability in the event of a leak. This, they say, could leave California taxpayers vulnerable to paying millions in cleanup costs.

That view was disputed Monday by both the state Department of Health Services and U.S. Ecology. In a telephone interview from Sacramento, Russ Huck, a research analyst for the state health department, called such charges wrong.

Ron Gaynor, a senior vice president with U.S. Ecology, said that when the site opens, a portion of the dumping fees set by the state is to be earmarked to pay the costs of closure 30 years from the opening date. Those fees will also cover the bills for environmental monitoring for at least 100 years, Gaynor said.

As for cleanup costs, the federal Superfund law requires U.S. Ecology to pay for any environmental damages caused by the dump, Gaynor said. He also said the company is required to maintain a $10-million liability insurance policy.

Nonetheless, state Controller Gray Davis said Monday he will conduct an independent study to determine the state’s liability in the event of a spill. Until he gets the answers, Davis said he will vote as a member of the State Lands Commission to block transfer of the dump site from the federal government to the state.

Stammer reported from Los Angeles and Feldman from Needles. Times staff writer Jenifer Warren in Los Angeles also contributed to this article.