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The state of Washington filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Department of Energy in federal court to prevent DOE from permanently closing down the planned Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear repository.
"The Department of Energy's move to permanently remove Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste repository -- with no identified alternative -- significantly sets back cleanup at Hanford and puts our people and our environment at risk," Rob McKenna, state attorney general, said in a statement.
Hanford's high-level radioactive tank waste has been expected to go Yucca Mountain once it is turned into a stable glass form at the vitrification plant. Nuclear fuel irradiated at Hanford also has been planned to be sent to the repository.
In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia, the state is asking that Yucca Mountain continue to be evaluated as a national repository and that DOE be stopped by preliminary injunction from taking further action to terminate work at Yucca Mountain until the court rules.
Washington filed in March to join proceedings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after DOE moved to permanently withdraw its Yucca Mountain license application from consideration by the NRC.
But last week the NRC decided to put licensing proceedings on hold until the federal court decides cases previously filed to stop termination of Yucca Mountain.
Those cases include one filed by South Carolina, which also has a DOE nuclear weapons site, and one filed by three Tri-City business leaders -- Bill Lampson, Bob Ferguson and Gary Petersen.
The state had filed to intervene in the NRC decisions because it expected that to be the first decision made, but said in March that it had not ruled out taking further legal steps if needed.
"In taking this legal action, we continue to staunchly defend the interests of Washington in retaining a potential repository for the millions of gallons of high-level radioactive waste our state currently houses," McKenna said. "DOE simply does not have the authority to unilaterally and forever terminate the Yucca Mountain project with no alternatives and no valid reason."
Congress selected Yucca Mountain as the site for the nation's repository and the federal government already has spent $10 billion on the project, he said.
"Since the state of Washington is so enthusiastic about underground storage of spent nuclear fuel, perhaps their governor and their citizens will volunteer to have the nation's nuclear waste dump located within their borders," Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, a Republican, told The Associated Press.
Hanford produced two-thirds of the nation's plutonium for its nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War. The site is extensively contaminated, potentially threatening the Columbia River, and large quantities of low-level radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals from plutonium production are being buried at Hanford.
In a worst-case scenario, terminating the Yucca Mountain repository could result in a need to tear down and rebuild portions of the $12.2 billion Hanford vitrification plant, which is being built to treat Hanford's high-level waste to meet the requirements of Yucca Mountain, according to the state of Washington.
"Attorney General McKenna made the right decision to file his lawsuit today to try to stop the Obama administration from closing down Yucca Mountain, the site that remains the statutory nuclear waste repository for the United States," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement.
The Obama administration's decision to shut down the Yucca Mountain project violates U.S. law in three ways, the state said in its lawsuit.
It violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the law under which Congress designated Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear repository, the state said.
It violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a study to assess environmental consequences of actions such as terminating Yucca Mountain, the state said.
In addition, it violates the Administrative Procedures Act by being "arbitrary and capricious," the state said.
w Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricity herald.com.
