THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 29, 1995 TAG: 9504290358
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Since 1988, environmentalists have blocked the shipment of foreign nuclear waste into the United States. But now, the Department of Energy has raised the issue again, and is considering Hampton Roads as a possible gateway for such overseas shipments.
According to a newly released environmental report, Hampton Roads is one of 10 ports favored to accept more than 22,000 spent fuel rods from nuclear research reactors in 41 countries, including Iran, Israel and South Africa.
The rods, containing the type of enriched uranium that can make nuclear weapons, would be shipped in special steel casks over a 13-year period, the report says.
But none of the material would be stored locally. Instead, it would quickly be trucked to one of five storage facilities, all outside Virginia, said Jane Brady, a Department of Energy spokeswoman in Washington.
However, Brady conceded, there is not enough space to store all the foreign rods. If the government decides to import wastes after mulling public and official comments over the next two months, new and expensive holding areas would have to be built, she said.
Hampton Roads residents will get a chance to voice their opinions on the issue at a public hearing May 15 at Old Dominion University.
Portsmouth Mayor Gloria Webb will urge that another port be chosen, one closer to a proposed storage yard in South Carolina.
``I'd rather it not come through here at all,'' Webb said Friday. ``If they're going to store it there (in South Carolina), why ship it here and take the chance of transporting it all that way by road?''
Tons of foreign nuclear waste have come through marine terminals in Portsmouth, Norfolk and Newport News for years without incident. But environmentalists, including a local Sierra Club watchdog, filed a lawsuit in 1988 that stopped all shipments into the country.
In 1991, a federal judge ordered the Department of Energy to complete a comprehensive study of foreign wastes by June 1995. The report released this month satisfies that court order.
By accepting uranium-tainted wastes from around the globe, especially from volatile regions such as the Middle East, American officials hope to limit the possibility that terrorists or a hostile nation might get hold of weapons-grade material.
While environmentalists applaud this nonproliferation policy, they question the wisdom of the U.S. government agreeing to take foreign nuclear waste when it has trouble finding room for its own nuclear leftovers.
``Other secure alternatives exist for disposal of these 22,700 foreign rods without their coming to the USA,'' said Robert Deegan of Virginia Beach, a nuclear-issues specialist with the Sierra Club.
Two regional congressmen, U.S. Reps. Herbert H. Bateman and Norman Sisisky, have expressed concerns about foreign shipments through Hampton Roads in the past. Their offices said Friday that they want to make sure the wastes are not stored locally for any length of time.
``His opposition is not really to the shipments coming in,'' said Dan Scandling, Bateman's spokesman in Washington. ``He just doesn't want it sitting around on the docks of Norfolk.''
Alice Alonge, a spokeswoman for Sisisky, said the Chesapeake Democrat has urged the Department of Energy to look at ports with smaller neighboring populations than the 1.2 million people in Hampton Roads.
Hampton Roads was chosen as a possible gateway from 153 ports reviewed for the environmental report, Brady said. Factors involved were experience with nuclear waste, safe transit options, adequate facilities and surrounding populations.
The report studied three policy alternatives - shipping all rods overseas, helping foreign countries safely dispose of their nuclear wastes, or a combination of the two.
The report makes no formal recommendation. But the Clinton administration in recent months has pursued an aggressive stance toward nonproliferation of nuclear capabilities, leading some officials and environmentalists to believe that the overseas-shipment alternative will be adopted.
A formal decision should be announced by September, Brady said. MEMO: These U.S. cities are possible ports of entry for foreign nuclear
waste: Charleston, S.C.; Galveston, Texas; Hampton Roads, Va;
Jacksonville, Fla.; Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, N.C.; Naval
Weapons Station at Concord, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Savannah, Ga.;
Tacoma, Wash.; Wilmington, N.C. Source: The Department of Energy
ILLUSTRATION: Color drawing
KEYWORDS: NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR CARGO by CNB