Sho-Bans Enter Fray Over Nuclear Waste Shipments
(AP)
As Indian leaders joined the state's fight against resumption
of nuclear waste storage at the Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory (INEL), technicians unloaded the first truckload of
high-level radioactive waste to be stored in Idaho in more than
two years.
Tribal Council member Marvin Osborne said the Department of
Energy was formally advised that future waste transport trucks from
Colorado will be violating Shoshone-Bannock law until the
government finances a hazardous material transportation safety
program on the Fort Hall Reservation.
"We've got to protect the health and safety of our people,"
Osborne said. "If we have to put a stop to them, we just may do
that. We've been trying to get something done for years, and
nothing has happened."
Department spokesman Brad Bugger maintained the government has
already agreed to provide the tribes with the equipment and
training they want. But Osborne claimed that offer amounts to
nothing more that a promise that if there is an accident involving
a nuclear waste shipment, department crews would take care of it as
quickly as possible.
Bugger had no comment on the government's possible response
should tribal authorities interfere with the next high-level waste
shipment.
Tribal police issued a warning to the drivers of the first
truckload of waste when it entered the reservation on Interstate 15
Saturday Oct. 5, breaking the unilateral ban on out-of-state waste
shipments to the INEL that Gov. Cecil Andrus had successfully
maintained since August 1989.
The warning said the next attempt to cross the reservation would
be considered a violation.
Workers began unloading the truck Tuesday, Oct. 8, and
environmentalists said another truckload was being readied for
shipment this week from Public Service Co. of Colorado's
decommissioned Fort St. Vrain reactor near Denver. The main route
between Denver and the INEL cuts through the reservation.
"I'll take allies any place I can get them," said Andrus,
who served as Interior Secretary in the Carter administration.
"We're not though with this. We are not going to sit idly by and
let them have their way with us."
The utility has been trying to ship the waste to the INEL
since February under a 1965 contract with the Energy Department to
handle storage. It hopes to complete the transfer of 300 tons of
the material within a year. Andrus, who for the past three years
has focused national attention on the country's lack of a permanent
nuclear waste storage policy, managed to hold the shipments at bay
by threat of State Police intervention and then two court
challenges.
He lost both, the second adverse ruling coming Sept. 20
from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. It
rejected the state's claims that the shipments violated federal
law.
The attorney general's office has asked all 29 judges of
the 9th circuit to review that ruling and has also sought a new
court order barring further shipments until INEL obtains a state
air quality permit for its storage facility.
Federal officials maintained no permit was required, and
the state was pressing for a quick court hearing on the question
because another shipment appeared imminent.
"It's becoming pretty obvious to me that the Department of
Energy clearly made a decision that Idaho would be their target to
become a high-level radioactive waste site," Andrus said. "The
Department of Energy is in violation of site state statutes.
...Anything we can do to make them honest citizens from any avenue
we will support."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+**+
Michele Lord * Walk in Peace with
(milo@scicom.alphacdc.com) * our Mother Earth
+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*+=*