Nuclear Waste Dump Will Close

The Beatty dump, which has served as a graveyard for low-level nuclear waste for three decades, was scheduled to close its gates to the nuclear waste industry Friday.

The dump on the outskirts of Beatty, 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was the first site in the nation licensed to accept radioactive garbage such as contaminated laboratory gear.

The dump, which opened in 1962, will no longer accept shipments of low-level nuclear waste because of a new federal law requiring states to open their own dumps or join compacts with other states for regional disposal of low-level radioactive waste.

The site, run by Louisville, Ky.-based US Ecology, will continue to accept non-nuclear hazardous materials such as chemicals and electrical transformers tainted with cancer-causing PCBs. But even that operation is in doubt.

The state of Nevada, which leases the dump site to US Ecology, wants to terminate the lease because of a flap over fees the state requires to dispose of hazardous waste.

Gov. Bob Miller has said he doesn’t want an out-of-state company making profits off of Nevada, although, “as a state we’re perfectly willing to dispose of materials for which we create.

Miller has vowed that the state will not be a permanent dumping ground for low-level nuclear waste.

“We’ve had our turn,” Miller said. “It’s been a tough road, but I think it’s in the best interest for the future of the state to deter the transportation and disposal of low-level waste.”

He and other state officials are fighting a similar battle against the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada.

The federal government wants to build the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, a dozen miles southeast of the Beatty dump site. Yucca Mountain, if approved, would house 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear plants for up to 10,000 years.

Up to now, all of the nation’s low-level nuclear waste as been stored in Nevada, or at dump sites in Washington and South Carolina.

When the regional compacts were formed around the country, Nevada joined with Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming in the Rocky Mountain compact. As of Friday, no low-level nuclear waste can be shipped to or disposed of in Nevada without the approval of the compact and Nevada officials.