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A National Mess ; Responsibility for West Valley Cleanup Should Fall Squarely on Federal Government

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Although local health and environment watchdog groups are understandably leery of turning the West Valley nuclear waste site over to the agency giving them the most problems, there is this logic behind the move: The mess was created by the federal government, and the federal government should clean it up.

That's the rationale behind a proposed bill, widely endorsed by this region's House of Representatives delegation and the state, that would make the federal government totally responsible for the cleanup. It's a good rationale, even if opponents see devils in the details.

Cleanup work at West Valley has been hampered by a state-federal stalemate over that cleanup responsibility. The federal Department of Energy runs a Demonstration Project focused on the former nuclear fuel processing facility's high-level radioactive waste, while the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority runs a low- level radioactive waste dump there.

The original nuclear material reprocessing facility and waste depository, designed to recycle nuclear power plant fuel rods, was a federally encouraged private operation on a state-owned site. Siting it in West Valley, with creeks running through farmlands and the Seneca Reservation to Lake Erie, was a huge mistake compounded by spills and accidents.

When the private company failed, thousands of gallons of highly radioactive waste were left on site, along with contaminated soil, ground water and facility equipment and debris. Congress passed the West Valley Demonstration Act in 1981, launching an expensive effort to turn the liquid into more stable glass logs. But there is still no place to ship those logs, and there now are controversial proposals for extended on-site storage and monitoring, and for downgrading the classification of some wastes to allow cheaper processing or storage as low-level materials.

Turning all responsibility over to the federal government, under a bill filed by Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, and backed by longtime West Valley champion Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-Clarence, would save New York millions of dollars and shift the burden entirely to the federal government that launched the original six- year reprocessing project in the 1960s. Given the right emphasis by the federal government, that could end the stalemate and enhance progress toward site cleanup.

Citizens groups have reasonable arguments against that. They argue that existing responsibility disputes could be settled in court, and better public review process guarantees should be included before the site is turned completely over to an Energy Department that already has tried to fragment environmental studies and weaken cleanup standards.

They want a unified site-wide environmental impact statement evaluating cleanup options to be completed before any new law, and worry that West Valley could be made a permanent nuclear waste "sacrifice area" if debate on a new law opens the door to wider changes. New York also should maintain some say on the cleanup because the Bush administration has a poor environmental record, they add.

But one even stronger argument for the proposal remains: Only the federal government has pockets deep enough to really do this job, and as the originator of the mess it has the responsibility to do so. This could break the logjam.

Source: Buffalo News

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