THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 22, 1995 TAG: 9504220303
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The U.S. Department of Energy no longer is considering Portsmouth as a storage site for spent nuclear fuel from Navy warships, a decision that has delighted city officials and environmentalists.
In a long-awaited environmental report released this week, the department instead recommends that all such highly radioactive waste be stored at a remote laboratory in Idaho.
``That's good news for the Navy and good news environmentally for Hampton Roads,'' said Robert Deegan, a Virginia Beach resident and nuclear-issues specialist with the Sierra Club.
Last June, an announcement that Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth was one of 15 sites nationwide under review as a long-term storage facility of Navy nuclear waste created a storm of local protest and concern.
But the Portsmouth option never seemed to gain much momentum as federal analysts soon realized that placing up to 27 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods and other contaminated material in a busy Navy port would not be a wise move.
``No one I ever talked to - not in the Navy, not in our community, not in Washington - ever said this was a good idea,'' said Marilee Hawkins, Portsmouth's director of environmental services, who likewise opposed the plan.
Hawkins said that she had not seen the three-volume environmental report but that Navy officials in Portsmouth called her Thursday with the news. A copy of the report was being forwarded to Mayor Gloria Webb.
The 5,000-page study resulted from a court order issued in Idaho that temporarily halted shipment of Navy nuclear wastes to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
In the aftermath, the Department of Energy undertook its comprehensive review of alternative storage sites, including Portsmouth. The Navy, meanwhile, was forced to store radioactive wastes from its nuclear fleet at its six maintenance yards across the country.
Two of those are in Hampton Roads - at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Newport News Shipbuilding.
Waste materials collected from Navy ships during their refueling or decommissioning at these yards are now recommended for transport to Idaho as well, according to the environmental report.
The report's recommendations are not final, however, and must still undergo a 30-day comment period, said Bradley P. Bugger, a Department of Energy spokesman.
But Bugger said the report probably will become effective by June 1 - unless Idaho or an environmental group tries to block the waste transfer through more court action.
That appears unlikely, considering that the new Republican governor of Idaho, Phil Batt, agreed in January to accept eight shipments of Navy waste for temporary storage as a goodwill gesture. Those shipments came from Newport News Shipbuilding, which desperately needed storage space.
In exchange, Batt was promised that a permanent nuclear waste site would be located outside of his state.
Currently, the Department of Energy is eyeing a dumping ground at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. ILLUSTRATION: Color map
KEYWORDS: NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR STORAGE by CNB