THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 13, 1995 TAG: 9501130522
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Idaho's new Republican governor agreed Thursday to accept eight more shipments of radioactive waste from Navy ships, apparently reducing the prospect of long-term waste storage at Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
The Navy has been looking at keeping spent fuel in the Portsmouth yard for up to 40 years as part of alternatives to storage at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
Several containers of the material have been kept at the shipyard for more than a year while the Navy and the U.S. Department of Energy tried to persuade Idaho to allow additional shipments at the Idaho site, operated by the Energy Department.
The Navy and DOE have said the Idaho site is the only place now available for permanent disposal of nuclear fuel. DOE is trying to develop a permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The DOE will decide next spring, in a final environmental impact statement, where to send the spent fuel.
The prospect of long-term storage at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, which sits in a heavily populated area, had alarmed environmentalists and some Portsmouth residents.
The Navy had estimated that up to 27 tons of the radioactive material could be generated at the Portsmouth yard and at Newport News Shipbuilding during the next 40 years. The waste is in the form of spent fuel rods and contaminated material from the refueling or decommissioning of Navy ships.
In exchange for accepting the new shipments, Gov. Phil Batt received another round of promises that the federal government would work with the state to ensure that
permanent dumps outside Idaho are opened for waste already stored at the Energy site. ``Instead of fighting this issue in a court case that we would most likely lose, I have chosen instead to open up a new and more constructive dialogue with the Navy,'' he said.
Retired Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus, who had been challenging federal officials on the waste issue since October 1988, advised the Clinton administration and its top Navy brass last month that he would not accept its request to take shipments of spent nuclear reactor fuel beyond the 19 specified in a 1993 federal court order.
Batt had indicated he would follow Andrus' lead. But he said Monday that he believed more Navy waste could could be safely transported to Idaho for temporary storage, and announced plans to meet with Adm. Bruce DeMars, chief of the Navy's nuclear propulsion program. Their discussions Thursday produced the agreement.
``I strongly believe this is the first step to getting the permanent repositories open and the stored waste out of Idaho,'' Batt said.
DeMars was strongly criticized by Andrus for what the Democratic governor considered strongarm tactics by the military to get its way at the Energy Department site. But the admiral said things have changed with Batt in office.
``We have a new, very good relationship, one where we can discuss these matters in a straightforward way and agree ultimately on what is in the best interests of the people of Idaho and the best interests of the Navy program,'' he said.
DeMars said the eight new shipments should begin within six weeks and be completed within several months. Almost 600 shipments of spent Navy fuel have gone to the Idaho site since the nuclear propulsion program began in the 1950s. For years it was reprocessed; now it's used only for research.
The Navy contends national security would be threatened if the additional shipments were blocked because refueling preparations for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Newport News Shipbuilding would be delayed. The next carrier scheduled for refueling is the Nimitz, based in Bremerton, Wash. MEMO: Staff writer Dale Eisman contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Map
STAFF
KEYWORDS: NUCLEAR CARGO AND WASTE by CNB