THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200274
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
1970s-1980s: State-backed ports at Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News received almost all overseas nuclear waste shipments.
1988: The Sierra Club successfully sued the U.S. government and stopped all such shipments pending an environmental study.
1995: The initial Department of Energy report recommends Hampton Roads as one of 10 ports as gateways for fuel rods from 41 countries.
Now: The final DOE report calls for only Charleston Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina and Concord Naval Weapons Station in California as entry ports, beginning this year. It cites local objections for dropping Hampton Roads.
In a policy reversal applauded by local officials and environmentalists, the U.S. Department of Energy has decided to no longer ship foreign nuclear wastes through Hampton Roads.
In a final report released Monday, the DOE recommends that tons of highly radioactive wastes from research reactors in countries including Israel, South Africa and Iran instead enter the United States through two military ports, in South Carolina and California.
``Now that's good news,'' beamed Portsmouth Mayor Gloria Webb, who has argued for years that spent nuclear fuel rods from overseas reactors would better be accepted elsewhere. ``It sounds like they finally heard us.''
For decades, the state-supported ports of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News received virtually all overseas nuclear waste shipments without a hitch. The ports earned a national atomic-friendly reputation in the 1970s and '80s and effectively cornered what turned into a lucrative market that no one else wanted.
That, however, ended in 1988 when the Sierra Club successfully sued the U.S. government and stopped all foreign shipments until a comprehensive environmental study was conducted.
President Clinton wants to resume waste imports as part of his non-proliferation policy, intended to lower the chance of enriched uranium or other potentially destructive materials falling into the hands of a hostile nation or terrorist group.
In its initial report last April, the DOE recommended that Hampton Roads and nine other U.S. ports serve as gateways for 22,700 foreign fuel rods that have accumulated at reactors in 41 countries. The rods would have been shipped over a 13-year period, and would have been taken to government-run storage sites outside of Virginia.
But citing local objections and public-relations concerns, the DOE decided in its final report that the rods should instead enter the country through the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina and the Concord Naval Weapons Station in California, beginning this year.
``Based on the results of this analysis, DOE believes that foreign research reactor spent nuclear fuel could be received safely via commercial ports, as it has in the past,'' according to the final report. ``Nevertheless, DOE agrees that the use of military ports would provide additional security over that which would be available at commercial ports.''
Joseph A. Dorto, general manager and CEO of Virginia International Terminals, a private company that runs the state ports at Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision.
He said the government ``took the path of least resistance'' in opting to import the wastes through military installations.
``We hate to see any business leave our ports, especially if we know we can handle the job, which we have for years and years,'' Dorto said. ``But people hear the word nuclear and they think the world's coming to an end.''
Dorto said the big money in handling nuclear wastes is not made by the ports, but by the shipping companies. ``We charge the same thing for a load of broom handles as we do for this type of material,'' he said.
Robert Deegan, a Sierra Club nuclear-issues specialist from Virginia Beach, said the policy change is ``undiluted good news for Hampton Roads.'' Deegan, a retired naval officer, was a plaintiff in the 1988 lawsuit that blocked foreign shipments.
But he remains concerned that American taxpayers would be paying the tab for shipping and storing foreign wastes at a time when the U.S. government is struggling to find a solution to its own growing stockpile of waste.
``Why are we subsidizing developed countries like France and Sweden, when we don't know how we'll pay for our own disposal?'' Deegan asked.
The nuclear materials in question are part of the ``Atoms For Peace'' program. Initiated in the 1950s, the government program supplies technology and fuel rods to foreign countries in exchange for their promise to forgo the development of nuclear weapons.
As part of the deal, the U.S. government also agreed to accept foreign nuclear wastes for management and storage. The problem is, the government is quickly running out of safe storage space.
Fuel rods expected to return soon from overseas, for example, are headed to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Both are government-run facilities, and both are nearly out of room.
Indeed, the Navy recently had to negotiate a much-publicized agreement with the governor of Idaho to temporarily accept nuclear wastes from warships because the Pentagon had no other place to take its material.
KEYWORDS: NUCLEAR CARGO NUCLEAR WASTE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
HAZARDOUS CARGO by CNB