What’s the Big Hurry? : Let new Administration have a long look at Ward Valley

By Jan. 1, 1993, according to a federal law passed in 1985, the states were to have organized into compacts and made provision for the disposal of the nation’s low-level radioactive waste (LLRW). Three days ago, that deadline passed with not one new dump site approved, much less with any new dump in service.

Safety questions are behind the delay. And behind those questions, a more general question: Are dumps the answer? When a dump opens on state-owned land, the taxpayers inevitably assume some liability for eventual nuclear pollution. By contrast, if the waste remains in “monitored retrievable storage” facilities managed by the waste producers, then they, rather than the taxpayers, are principally liable.

An LLRW dump for the Southwest Compact has been proposed for a site at Ward Valley, near Needles. Last spring, however, environmentalists and civic groups challenged the licensing of the dump, raising questions both about the safety record of U.S. Ecology, the proposed operator, and about nuclear pollution of the 20-miles-distant Colorado River.

Under pressure from state Sen. David A. Roberti, chairman of the Rules Committee, Gov. Pete Wilson and California Health Services Secretary Russell Gould then agreed to an adjudicatory hearing on the safety of the Ward Valley site. The Department of Health Services (DHS) estimated at the time that the hearing would last eight months.

The hearing has not taken place, however, because the proposed operator sued to stop it. The department, which had supported the operator’s application, joined in requesting the 3rd Circuit Court in Sacramento to dispense with the hearing. Despite their promise, the DHS and Gov. Wilson had clearly never wanted the hearing. (Last October an adjudicatory hearing in Illinois determined that a proposed dump there--one that had passed the same standard administrative review that Ward Valley has passed--posed so serious a threat that it could not be licensed.)

Adjudicatory hearing or no, California must acquire the proposed dump site from the federal government through the state’s Lands Commission, which has been understandably reluctant to act. In the last days of the Bush Administration, however, the DHS is attempting to bypass the Lands Commission and acquire the site directly from the federal Department of the Interior. Unfortunately, this cannot be done without extreme and, in our judgment, reckless haste.

By law, Interior’s Bureau of Land Management cannot transfer the land to the DHS without offering an environmental impact statement for public comment. Scores of comments have been received, many on the Dec. 28 deadline day. But Edward Hastey, California director for the Bureau of Land Management, submitted his agency’s responses to these comments after just 48 hours. Even now, however, Interior cannot act unless the Environmental Protection Agency waives its 30-day holding period for environmental impact statements.

The intent, pretty clearly, is to rush through a Ward Valley “emergency” deal before Bruce Babbitt replaces Manuel Lujan Jr. as Interior secretary. But no emergency looms for California waste producers: The Southwestern Compact has just signed an 18-month agreement for the disposal of LLRW at a dump in Barnwell, S.C. Ironically, had the eight-month adjudicatory hearing begun on schedule, it would have ended by now, perhaps with an agreement for at least the disposal of medical waste.

We urge Secretary-designate Babbitt and Vice President-elect Al Gore to request that outgoing Secretary Lujan and outgoing EPA Director William K. Reilly postpone action on the transfer of the Ward Valley site until after Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. Ward Valley, if licensed, will become the first new LLRW dump opened under the 1985 legislation and the recipient, possibly, of waste from around the country. It should not be licensed without the adjudicatory hearing the DHS promised. It should not, above all, be rushed through during a presidential transition.