Savannah River suspends waste tank closures following court decision

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The court overruled the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to reclassify some high-level nuclear waste in order to seal it in temporary storage tanks, such as those at Savannah River, and leave it. National legislation enacted in 1982 requires high-level waste to be buried in a deep geologic repository.

There are 51 tanks at Savannah River. Two of them were emptied except for about 3,000 gallons of residue, which was sealed inside with concrete.

Rick Ford, a spokesman for Savannah River, said Wednesday operations to close any more tanks will stop until the ruling is reviewed by government lawyers. Ford said the decision may delay clean-up and cause the costs to soar.

Some South Carolina officials, however, said the court ruling may give the state's citizens more voice in deciding whether high-level waste will remain in the state.

Ford said the government hasn't precisely figured the potential cost and delays "but we're probably talking about additional billions of dollars and additional decades to finish the clean-up."

The Natural Resources Defense Council — a private, non-profit conservation organization — won the federal court ruling. The council said the energy department had violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

The council said the energy department's order would have created three "national sacrifice zones" at Savannah River and sites in Washington state and Idaho.

The energy department had given itself the right to reclassify the residue in huge underground storage tanks differently and to fill the tanks with concrete and leave them in the shallow pits where they currently sit.

"We would hope there would continue to be some robust public participation in this process," said David Wilson, assistant director of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's Bureau of Land and Waste Management.

Energy department spokesman Joe Davis said the government's lawyers are "keeping their options open" and have not yet decided whether to appeal.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said the energy department and congressional allies might try to incorporate the department's order allowing it to reclassify the waste into the 1982 act. Davis said he knows of no such effort.

At stake is the ultimate disposal of the 34 million gallons of waste at Savannah River, 53 million gallons at a site in Hanford, Wash., and 900,000 gallons at an Idaho site.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility, which converts the most dangerous contents of the tanks into glass logs, currently is scheduled to make as many as 6,000 of the logs for eventual storage at Yucca Mountain, Nev. If the entire contents of the tanks have to be handled in that fashion, Ford said it could mean 120,000 glass logs and the possible construction of an additional processing facility.

Ford said a third tank to be closed would have been left with about 15,000 gallons of waste to be mixed with the concrete filler. Plans to fill and close the third and fourth tanks are under review as a result of the court ruling.

South Carolina joined state officials in Washington, Oregon and Idaho in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the suit against the energy department, objecting to the government's attempt to give itself powers not granted in the law to reclassify the waste.

Geoffrey Fettus, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the council is examining its options concerning the two Savannah River tanks already filled with concrete.

"For (the energy department) to say this is going to slow down clean-up is ridiculous. The law says get all the waste out of the tanks. We think this goes to the completeness of clean-up, not the pace," Fettus said.