THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995            TAG: 9502220004
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   43 lines

U.S. DOESN'T NEED FOREIGN NUCLEAR WASTE

One of the topics in your interview of U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary was her department's plan to bring European nuclear-waste fuel rods into the United States. You quoted Secretary O'Leary (Business News, Jan. 26) as saying that the United States had signed a treaty 20 years ago agreeing to take the nuclear waste from the European research reactors. My inquiries indicate that statement is incorrect. Indeed, during eight years of following this nuclear-waste controversy I had never heard of such a treaty obligation.

Upon reading your report of Secretary O'Leary's statement, I telephoned the cognizant staff officer of the Department of Energy (DOE) in Washington. After consulting with other DOE offices, he said that DOE does not claim any treaty obligation of the United States to take the nuclear waste, although DOE supports doing so for nonproliferation reasons.

Various environmental groups, as well as South Carolina, have challenged DOE's plans to import the nuclear-waste fuel rods (650 shipments in the decades ahead). Most of this nuclear waste would be of no use in making nuclear weapons. Moreover, the western European countries seeking to unload this nuclear waste (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc.) are fully capable of secure disposal of this material within Europe, although at higher cost to themselves.

The Sierra Club has not opposed shipment of certain nuclear waste from Russia and Kazakhstan into the United States because a credible proliferation risk exists. However, in this instance, the European reactor operators are trying to take advantage of the United States to dispose of their own nuclear waste at lower cost.

We have plenty of nuclear-waste problems of our own without taking Europe's too.

ROBERT F. DEEGAN

Nuclear-waste-issues chairman

Sierra Club, Virginia Chapter

Virginia Beach, Jan. 28, 1995 by CNB