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Editorial: Idaho needs open debate on accepting more nuclear waste

Sat., March 7, 2015

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter sees “possibilities” in a new agreement allowing more nuclear waste into the state. So do two of his predecessors, and they do not like the possibilities they see.

To former Idaho chief executives Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt, possibility No. 1 is a leak from storage facilities that hold spent fuel rods into the aquifer that sustains billions in Idaho agriculture.

And possibility No. 2 is further pressure from the U.S. Department of Energy to allow more waste in because alternative sites are few. A site in New Mexico has been shut down for a year. Work at Yucca Mountain, envisioned as the final resting place for much of the nation’s waste, has halted.

Technical challenges have also delayed start-up of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit designed to solidify liquid waste stored in Idaho. Once projected to be operational by January of this year, the deadline has slipped, possibly into 2016. The state in January began imposing fines of $3,600 per day for noncompliance.

Yet at almost the same time the fines were announced, Otter and Attorney General Lawrence Wasden were giving their preliminary approval to the new fuel rod shipments. In a Feb. 27 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Wasden noted his consent was qualified, and he no longer believes the deal conforms with a 1995 settlement agreement signed by Batt and negotiated in part by Andrus.

Andrus has precipitated a confrontation with the DOE by closing Idaho’s borders to further imports of waste. The former governors put a lot of themselves into that 20-year-old deal, and are willing to go to court to see that Otter does not undo it.

Wasden has revisited that 1995 agreement, and another negotiated in 2011, and has rightly concluded the DOE is out of compliance. He concludes his Feb. 27 letter with this: “DOE must demonstrate its commitment to the 1995 Settlement Agreement as a condition to moving forward with the research mission.”

Until the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit is working, Wasden says he will not grant the waivers that will allow the fuel rods into Idaho.

He does not mention, but Andrus and Batt do, that there is also supposed to be public discussion of any arrangement before a deal goes down. There has been none.

Ongoing research at the Idaho National Laboratory is the DOE’s justification for importing more fuel rods, and concern about that facility’s future no doubt figured in Otter’s decision; that plus a potential $200 million payoff over the next 10 years.

Andrus and Batt are not impressed by the money, except as a sign the DOE might have more in store for Idaho. But, as Batt noted, the financial consequences of a leak into the Snake River aquifers would dwarf the short-term benefits of accepting the fuel rods.

At the least, Otter should allow Idahoans to analyze the deal for themselves. They know the stakes. And why not debate the agreement with one of the former governors?

Now, there’s a possibility.