Study shows the federal government should live up to its commitment to clean up nuclear waste.

A National Academy of Sciences study has found that the U.S. Energy Department should drop its plan to bury nuclear waste at the Savannah River Site.

But the Energy Department doesn't care. It is proceeding with its plan.

To fully understand the dishonesty of the federal government in this situation, you have to go back many years, back to when the federal government wanted to build nuclear facilities in several states. To reassure the people in those states, Congress passed laws requiring the federal government to clean up any waste on those sites.

In essence, federal officials told the states, including South Carolina, that it would keep those states clean and wouldn't leave them with a nuclear dump.

They lied.

Federal officials have decided it would cost too much to live up to that commitment. They are cleaning up much of the waste at former plutonium processing plants like the Savannah River Site, but there will be some radioactive sludge left in underground storage tanks that will be expensive to remove.

Although federal law required the Energy Department to remove all the high-level nuclear waste, department officials came up with a scheme. They would dilute the high-level waste so that they could reclassify it as low-level waste and then just bury it at the site.

A federal court ruled against that plan, but Congress changed the law to allow it. So now the official Washington plan is to bury this radioactive waste at a place that is not suitable for that type of disposal.

This month, the National Academy of Sciences has added its warning to the situation, urging the department to postpone its plan until an alternative can be devised.

But neither the health of South Carolina's environment nor keeping their promises seems to matter to federal officials. They are proceeding with their plan to bury the waste at SRS.

And Washington wonders why South Carolina officials don't trust the federal government as it sends more surplus plutonium and nuclear waste to this state, accompanied by fresh assurances that it won't stay here.