Heart of America Northwest is suing the Department of Energy over its proposals to send radioactive waste to Hanford for disposal or storage.
In 2004, DOE formally decided to send up to 107,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste to Hanford. In addition, Hanford is being considered as a possible site for the nation's Greater Than Class C low-level radioactive waste, which includes waste so radioactively hot it must be handled with special equipment.
The 2004 decision was based on an environmental study that was found to contain errors in 2005, and DOE responded by canceling waste shipments to Hanford. It agreed not to import the waste covered in the study at least until a new study, the Hanford Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement, was completed. A draft of the study was released in October 2009.
But that study looked only at where imported waste would be buried at Hanford, not if it should be disposed of there, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington.
Heart of America, a Seattle-based Hanford watchdog, said the 2009 draft study continues to rely on the flawed study.
"Such reliance is arbitrary and capricious" and a violation of federal environmental laws requiring a thorough look at environmental impacts of importing waste, the lawsuit said.
In addition, DOE has not withdrawn its 2004 decision, the lawsuit said.
"If they had withdrawn the decision based on the old, invalid EIS (environmental impact statement), we wouldn't be suing," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America.
DOE declined to comment on the lawsuit.
However, DOE spokesman Erik Olds said DOE is not shipping waste from other environmental cleanup sites to Hanford now and has no plans to do so.
The 2009 draft impact statement proposes extending the 2005 ban on importing most types of waste to Hanford at least until the Hanford vitrification plant is operating fully, which is estimated to be in 2022. The $12.3 billion plant is being built to treat much of Hanford's worst wastes.
The proposed ban covers low-level radioactive waste, including waste mixed with hazardous chemicals, that had been proposed to be disposed of in Hanford landfills. It also covers transuranic waste -- typically waste contaminated with plutonium -- that would be stored at Hanford until it could be sent to a national repository.
In addition, DOE amended the draft study in December to expand the proposed limitations on sending off-site waste to Hanford to include Greater Than Class C low-level waste.
However, Heart of America wants an enforceable commitment from DOE, Pollet said.
Heart of America believes that sending more waste to Hanford would increase the number of people who develop cancer because of exposure to waste in 100, 1,000 or 10,000 years.
DOE wrote in the new study that "receipt of off-site waste streams that contain specific amounts of certain isotopes, specifically iodine 129 and technetium 99, could have an adverse impact on the environment."
It suggests two alternatives: Robust treatment of the waste, such as turning it into glass before burying it at Hanford, or limiting or restricting disposal of waste with those isotopes.
Under a scenario that would have waste buried at a new landfill, the Integrated Disposal Facility, about 90 percent of the radioactive iodine that would be released from the landfill would come from imported waste, according to the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator.
About 75 percent of the technetium that would be released also would come from imported waste, according to the state.
Heart of America is asking that DOE's 2004 decision on importing waste be declared invalid and that DOE be required to rescind it and be required to prepare a new environmental impact statement before any new decision to send waste to Hanford.
w Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricity herald.com;
