Incinerator may be dead
DOE and anti-nuke groups
settle suit
By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer
Pressure by anti-nuclear activists may have killed a proposed waste
incinerator at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) near
Arco.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced Monday that it has put plans
for the incinerator on hold while it searches for an alternative method of processing
mixed chemical and nuclear wastes stored at INEEL. The decision was part of a settlement
Sunday of a lawsuit filed by activists last fall against construction of the incinerator.
The incinerator would have been part of a facility designed to put wastes
into a form suitable for permanent storage in New Mexico. The DOE is obligated under an
agreement with Idaho to get the wastes out of the state by 2018. Some of the waste
contains PCBs, which, under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, can be
disposed of only through incineration.
Under Sunday’s settlement, the DOE agreed to halt its efforts to
obtain the necessary state and federal air-quality and hazardous-waste permits for the
incinerator. In return, the plaintiffs agreed not to legally challenge the non-incinerator
portion of the $300-million treatment facility. The DOE has stated that 78 percent of the
1.8 million cubic feet of waste to be shipped does not need incineration.
Opponents to the project have contended that incineration could put
carcinogenic plutonium particles into the air. They also argued that funding for the
facility could be better spent to process other, buried wastes that are leaking into the
Snake River aquifer. The waste slated for processing by the proposed facility is in
temporary storage above ground.
Snake River Alliance president David Kipping, a Ketchum resident, said the
settlement will not prohibit the alliance from continuing to oppose the project on that
basis. However, he added, "Frankly, I think that because of the politics of it,
that’s a losing battle."
Instead, Kipping said, the group will concentrate on pressuring the DOE to
find a substitute for proposed contractor British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL).
"That we will continue to pursue quite vigorously," Kipping
said. "We are very concerned about BNFL’s dismal record, not only of safety and
pollution, but also about their deliberately falsifying records."
Last month, the British government found BNFL to have manipulated
specifications on plutonium fuel rods being shipped to power plants in Switzerland,
Germany and Japan.
DOE spokesman Brad Bugger said his department was motivated to settle the
lawsuit not so much by fear that the suit might succeed, but by the knowledge that
opponents could stall the project by appealing any approval of the needed air-quality and
hazardous-waste permits.
Under the settlement, the DOE agrees to appoint a "blue-ribbon
panel" to explore alternatives to incineration. If an effective alternative is found,
Bugger said, the DOE will then have to persuade the EPA to accept it.
Under the settlement, if those two things cannot be accomplished, the
settlement will be void and the plaintiffs will be free to renew legal efforts to stop
construction of the incinerator.
The DOE’s decision was criticized in a statement released Monday by
Idaho’s senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, and Rep. Mike Simpson, whose district
includes INEEL.
"It’s frustrating (that) the public is not aware of how
inherently safe the incinerator and the entire INEEL site are," Simpson said.
