Burying Truth in Ward Valley
Recent efforts by US Ecology Inc. and state officials to get construction of the Ward Valley nuclear dump underway might seem comical if they weren’t so audacious.
Testing ordered earlier this year by the U.S. Interior Department on the safety of the dump site has been halted because US Ecology, the firm licensed to run the low-level nuclear waste facility in the Mojave Desert, has threatened to sue the consultants doing the testing. “Should you continue your participation in Interior’s ill-advised project,” the company warned the scientists, “please do so based on the knowledge that US Ecology intends to seek compensation from any persons or entities whose conduct wrongfully injures its interests in this manner.” The two hydrogeologists involved, members of a National Academy of Sciences panel that studied Ward Valley, have stopped work, fearing the costs of defending themselves in such legal action.
Of course, the threat only heightens concerns that the Ward Valley site would not safely contain the nuclear material dumped there. Test results made public last year raised questions about the potential for radioactive material to leech through the desert soil into underground water tables that ultimately supply major urban areas. Interior Department officials wisely insisted on additional tests before letting the project proceed.
But officials of US Ecology and the Pete Wilson administration, including the governor himself, view this requirement as one more in an endless series of roadblocks designed to kill the project. They seem not to recognize that the testing requirement is simple prudence and, if the tests find no risk of seepage, the project would probably gain a broader constituency.
Last year, senior Wilson administration officials proposed barring the shipment of low-level waste, accumulating at temporary storage facilities, from leaving the state. Wilson hoped this gambit would raise the heat on Congress to transfer the federal land on which the Ward Valley dump would be built, test or no test. But the governor eventually backed down, distancing himself from this foolish idea. Congress tried previously to pass the land to the state, without any testing requirements, but President Clinton properly blocked the transfer.
Long-term storage of low-level waste is clearly an important need; some of the many local sites where this material is temporarily stored are in densely populated neighborhoods. But construction of a permanent storage facility, even in a remote desert, serves the interest of no one if it carries risk to public health. The impatience displayed by the company and some state officials only gives credence to the suspicion that they’d like the truth buried along with the nuclear waste.
