The Natural Resources Defense Council and Idaho’s Snake River Alliance sued the Energy Department on Friday to prevent it from disposing of nuclear waste from military reactors in any way other than burial deep in the earth. In 1999, the Energy Department drafted rules to allow the difficult-to-remove waste left in the bottom of tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, and the Savannah River Site to be mixed with concrete and left in place. The NRDC and the Snake River Alliance claim those rules violate the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which requires such waste to be buried in a “deep geologic repository.” Some saw irony in the lawsuit, because the NRDC is among the many organizations that oppose the opening of Yucca Mountain in Nevada for deep burial of nuclear waste from civilian reactors. NRDC lawyer Geoffrey Fettus, however, said the organization was concerned about the geologic fitness of the Yucca site, but did not oppose all deep burial for nuclear waste.
