L.A., San Diego Split on Ward Valley Dump

County supervisors in Los Angeles and San Diego took opposite sides Tuesday in the long-running fight over the plan to store low-level radioactive waste at Ward Valley in the Mojave Desert.

After hearing pointed arguments, Los Angeles County supervisors voted 3 to 2 to go on record against the proposed dump site because of the lack of assurances that the site “will not contaminate the county’s critical water supply” from the Colorado River.

But in Southern California’s second most populous county, San Diego supervisors voted 4 to 0 to support the transfer of the Ward Valley property from the federal government to the state in order to accelerate the opening of the facility.

In their motion, San Diego County supervisors said a National Academy of Sciences panel found last May that the uninhabited Ward Valley location, near Needles, posed “no realistic threat to the Colorado River and that any additional study should not delay construction and operation” of the facility.

The distinctly different actions are the latest round in a fierce political fight between the Clinton administration, which wants more environmental review of the project, and the Wilson administration, which wants to proceed with the facility as soon as possible.

Gov. Pete Wilson threatened in February to stop trying to open the dump site if the Clinton administration fails to transfer the federally owned land to the state within six months.

While San Diego supervisors sided with Wilson, the Democrat-dominated Los Angeles board followed the lead of President Clinton, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Sen. Barbara Boxer in a go-slow approach to the facility.

Democrats on the board, led by Supervisor Gloria Molina, agreed with arguments that depositing low-level radioactive waste in shallow, unlined trenches could potentially pollute ground water and eventually reach the Colorado River about 18 miles away.

But the two Republicans, Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana, opposed the motion after representatives of UCLA, USC and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center warned that low-level waste from nuclear medicine, research and biotech companies is piling up at about 250 locations across the county because of the absence of a disposal site in California.

Environmentalists and anti-nuclear advocates hailed the Los Angeles board’s decision. Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, said moving forward with the site is “ill-advised and dangerous” and backers of Ward Valley would be smart to start thinking about alternatives that would separate biomedical waste from more toxic byproducts of the nuclear industry.

But medical and nuclear industry representatives said they were appalled by the board’s vote, saying it was based on “absolute ignorance” of conclusions by the National Academy of Sciences that the site can be constructed if proper oversight and monitoring are put in place.

Under federal law, the state is required to provide a low-level nuclear waste site in concert with Arizona, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Lisa Brandt, chief counsel for the California Department of Health Services, said in an interview that the Wilson administration considers it critical to move from storing low-level waste in the community to a safe location in the desert.

Donna L. Earley, director of radiation and environmental safety at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said she was puzzled by the board’s decision. With the threat of fires and earthquakes, she questioned why radioactive waste should be stored in the community.

“We have two years of waste sitting in a room. It doesn’t belong there,” she said. “I want to know that radioactive waste is in one secure, controlled spot.”