And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: <A HREF="http://www.oakridger.com/stories/032399/new_0323990006.html"> http://www.oakridger.com/stories/032399/new_0323990006.html</A> ========================================================= March 23, 1999 Radioactive waste to be shipped to New Mexico this week from staff and wire reports WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy, getting the go-ahead from a federal judge, said Monday it will send its first shipment of radioactive waste to a disposal site in New Mexico this week. The state and four environmental groups had sought to block the shipments, but U.S. District Judge John Garrett Penn refused Monday to issue an injunction postponing the shipments. He said the facility was legally free to accept waste. DOE gave notice to New Mexico this month that it would begin shipping 36 containers of highly radioactive waste from its Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., pending a court ruling. "We are making formal notification to the appropriate parties that non-mixed waste will be shipped from Los Alamos National Laboratory to WIPP starting this week," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in a statement after Penn's ruling. "It is our intention to ship the first load ... on Thursday." There was no immediate response from New Mexico officials. State Attorney General Patricia Madrid was en route to Washington for a conference. Her office in Santa Fe had no immediate comment. Don Hancock, a lawyer for the Southwest Research and Information Center, one of the groups that sought the injunction, said the group had "not given up" and would see if an appeal of Penn's decision was possible. Short of that, the 36 containers of so-called transuranic waste from Los Alamos, also in New Mexico, will be shipped by special trucks and placed in a vault 2,000 feet below the surface, where it eventually will be encased in surrounding salt beds. The waste, left over from the government nuclear weapons program, will remain radioactive for hundreds of years. Penn said the state and other plaintiffs, who asked for an injunction to delay the shipments, had "failed to demonstrate that they will suffer irreparable injury" if the shipments were allowed to proceed. Nor had the plaintiffs shown a likelihood they would succeed in blocking the opening of WIPP. The state had argued that no shipments should be allowed to proceed until the state issues a hazardous waste permit for the disposal facility. Such a permit is expected to be issued by the end of the year, state officials had argued at a court hearing March 12. But the Energy Department has maintained that the 36 drums held at Los Alamos contained "nonmixed" radioactive waste, or waste that while radioactive does not contain toxic chemicals that fall under federal or state hazardous waste laws. Penn agreed with the department. The judge also rejected arguments by the state that the WIPP should not be allowed to open because of a 1992 injunction, saying that injunction applied only to the facility's "test phase," which long had concluded. "WIPP is ready to open," Richardson told a Senate hearing last week. He said he was "troubled and dismayed" by the state Department of Environment's "lack of interest in certifying" the facility, after the federal Environmental Protection Agency gave its approval last year. Penn's decision applies only to the Los Alamos waste that has been ready for shipment for months. But DOE hopes the court action will lead to other shipments from the government's weapons facilities. There are 42 containers of transuranic waste awaiting movement from another DOE facility in Idaho and the government has promised to begin their removal by the end of April. Shipment of local transuranic waste, generated primarily at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is not scheduled to start until 2003. In all, the government has clearance to put as much as 6.2 million cubic feet of transuranic waste into WIPP. Currently there is an inventory of about 2.3 million cubic feet of such waste at 20 DOE facilities. Transuranic waste is contaminated material left over from decades of weapons research, production and storage. It consists generally of protective clothing, tools, equipment, soils and sludge that has been contaminated with plutonium and other highly radioactive elements. By law, WIPP cannot be used to store used reactor fuel, which is even more radioactive. The government is trying to determine whether that waste can be buried at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The WIPP facility has been under construction and review since the early 1980s. The groups who had joined New Mexico in seeking an injunction from Penn were the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, N.M., and the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, N.M. ====================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Did you know that we have over 85,000 e-mail communities at Onelist? http://www.onelist.com Come visit our new web site and explore a new interest ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOEWatch List --- Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/doewatch"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesized in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. Anyway we think we have found the way to cause the disintegration of the atom." -Quote from Truman's diary July 25, 45 after Pottsdam and the "baby was born"""The Doctor of the future will give No Medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."."-Attributed to Thomas Alva Edisonn"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"t"-George Orwell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
