Judge Delivers Setback to Nuclear Dump : Environment: Ruling says state has failed to answer radioactive leakage question. Action suspends license.

In a significant setback to California’s efforts to build a low-level nuclear waste dump in the Mojave Desert, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the state has not adequately addressed scientific arguments that radioactive material could leak into the nearby Colorado River.

Both sides in the case agreed that the ruling by Judge Robert H. O’Brien effectively suspends the license to operate the proposed Ward Valley dump. That license was issued last year to US Ecology Inc., a firm that runs several other waste dumps around the country.

The judge’s nine-page opinion dismissed most of the objections raised by opponents in their lawsuit challenging the license. The opponents had argued that the state failed to measure the impact of a dump not only on the river but also on wildlife habitat and misled the public on the amount of highly toxic plutonium that would be buried there.

But O’Brien made it clear that the state needs to provide more answers on the issue of radioactive leaks into the river.

“The questions of most concern to all parties and the public generally are: Will the Colorado River be contaminated?” O’Brien wrote. “Is it threatened to be contaminated? Is it possible it will be contaminated?”

Those are the questions raised in a controversial document known as the Wilshire Report which Ward Valley opponents claim that state and federal officials tried to quash when it was released last year.

The report by Howard Wilshire, a U.S. Department of Interior scientist, and two colleagues says the geology surrounding Ward Valley would allow contaminated water leaking from the facility to make its way to the Colorado by one of several pathways. The river is about 20 miles from the proposed dump site.

The judge found that the California Department of Health Services, the agency responsible for licensing Ward Valley, had not given the report adequate consideration.

“It does not appear that the analysis therein has been placed in a proper perspective, so that an objective person can properly evaluate it with the overall concerns and issues,” O’Brien wrote.

“Due to the extraordinary importance of what is at stake here, e.g. radioactive waste and drinking water . . . the analysis of the Wilshire Report should be placed side by side, in its complete form, with the counter-analysis before any approval.”

O’Brien was ruling on a lawsuit brought by four groups, including the Ft. Mojave Indians, whose land is located near the proposed dump, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Southern California Federation of Scientists and Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nonprofit, anti-nuclear organization that has spearheaded the campaign against Ward Valley.

Roger Carrick, the lawyer for the groups, hailed the judge’s ruling as “a courageous decision that cut to the heart of the issue at Ward Valley.”

Now the state must prepare a rebuttal to the Wilshire Report that satisfies O’Brien and puts the Ward Valley approval process back on track.

“I think what O’Brien is really looking for is something that both he, the judge, and the public can understand,” said Peter Baldridge, a staff attorney for the Health Services Department.

Baldridge suggested that the job could be time-consuming.

“First we need to decide what is the best way to approach it. We are going to want to provide him with a good explanation. That’s not going to be difficult to do, but it’s going to take some time,” Baldridge said.

Karl Lytz, the lawyer for US Ecology, said the judge’s ruling could delay legal approval of the project by many months.

Even if O’Brien gives his approval to the environmental assessment, opening of the dump is far from certain. The proposed dump site is owned by the federal government and it must agree to transfer it to the state before the dump can be built. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has pledged to hold a hearing to resolve any unanswered safety questions before agreeing to the transfer.

Consisting of several unlined trenches, the dump would accept radioactive waste from nuclear power plants as well as hospitals and biomedical firms.