US Court Rejects State's Nuclear Waste Cleanup Law
US: May 22, 2008
LOS ANGELES - A US appeals court on Wednesday threw out a Washington state
law barring the federal government from adding radioactive waste to the
Hanford nuclear disposal site until existing contamination is cleaned up.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law pre-empts the
state from halting waste disposal at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a
586-square-mile (1,520-square-km) site along the Columbia River in
south-eastern Washington.
It provided plutonium for World War Two atomic bombs and for the US Cold War
arsenal.
The three-judge appellate panel invalidated the 2004 voter-approved measure,
saying it infringes on federal rules that apply to radioactive wastes and
the US Department of Energy's ability to dispose of that waste.
The Washington Department of Ecology had appealed the case after a lower
court struck down the new law.
Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire said in a statement that she was
disappointed by the court's decision, but pledged to work to clear the
Hanford site.
Since 1989, the US Department of Energy, the US Environmental Protection
Agency and the state Department of Ecology have conducted the nation's
largest environmental cleanup at Hanford, where radioactive and chemically
hazardous waste and spent nuclear fuel have contaminated 80 square miles
(207 square km) of groundwater.
It is expected to be complete by 2035. But in 2004 the Energy Department
said it wanted to bring mixed radioactive waste from other cleanup sites
into Hanford disposal facilities.
In response, voters passed the Cleanup Priority Act to prevent new
radioactive and hazardous waste from coming to Hanford until the
decontamination is finished.
Subsequently, the Department of Energy agreed to hold off on bringing in new
waste until it conducts a new environmental analysis, which is expected in
2009.
(Reporting by Gina Keating; Editing by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Xavier
Briand)
Story by Gina Keating
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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