(Columbia-AP) March 26, 2003 -- South Carolina has
joined three states in a lawsuit that would block a
federal government plan that could allow permanent
storage of deadly nuclear waste at the Savannah River
Site and other nuclear complexes. The state filed suit
Monday along with Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
Arguments in federal court are scheduled for early
May. The states say a 21-year-old law requires the
federal government to bury high-level nuclear waste in a
federal repository, rather than leave it at the weapons
sites.
The US Department of Energy says it doesn't have to
send all the nuclear waste, generated from decades of
atomic weapons production, to Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
Critics have said a DOE order in 1999 would allow the
department to leave some high-level waste at the nuclear
weapons sites in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina.
Oregon is downriver from the Hanford weapons complex in
Washington.
Posted 11:49pm by BrettWitt
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