Shipping radioactive waste around the
country is neither cheap nor easy: When the U.S.
Department of Energy shipped the wrong type to the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant, the New Mexico Environment Department slapped the
Energy Department with a $2.4 million fine for violating the
state’s hazardous waste laws (HCN, 8/2/04: Follow-up). Then,
at the end of August, the Energy Department halted shipments of
low-level nuclear waste from Kentucky’s Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant to the Nevada Test Site when, for the third time
this summer, radioactive waste leaked from the trucks transporting
it (HCN, 1/19/98: State fights nuclear waste shipments). The Energy
Department has fined Bechtel Jacobs Company, the private company
overseeing cleanup at the Paducah site, $200,000 for the spills
— two were in New Mexico and one on Interstate 40 in Arizona.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has
continued to demonstrate that it is untrustworthy when it
comes to Indian trust funds, says U.S. District Court Judge Royce
C. Lamberth (HCN, 8/4/03: The Latest Bounce). In April, when
plaintiffs filed an “emergency notice” reporting that Interior had
allowed more than 350 boxes of records to be damaged or destroyed
by rodents, water and mold, the agency moved to strike that
information from the record, saying the reports “have no legal
pertinence.” But in September, Judge Lamberth denied the motion,
saying Interior “deliberately” failed to report the destruction of
records and acted “frivolously” by filing its motion. He adds, “The
Court is not endowed with powers of divination that would allow it
to interpret phrases such as ‘improper record-keeping
procedures,’ to mean actual damage and possible destruction
of hundreds of boxes of trust records.”
There is still time to comment on how the U.S. Forest
Service should shape its Roadless Area Conservation Rule
(HCN, 8/16/04: Feds pass roadless headache to states). The agency
has extended the public comment period to Nov. 15. To read the
rule, or to find out how to comment, visit
www.roadless.fs.fed.us.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Follow-up.
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