Butte County, Idaho sued Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in federal court this week over continued spent nuclear fuel storage at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The county says DOE should bear the “social” and “economic” costs of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) serving as a “default repository” for nuclear waste from entities such as the U.S. Navy and a commercial nuclear plant in Pennsylvania where a partial-reactor meltdown occurred.
Until DOE catalogs the impacts, INL should not receive any more shipments of Naval spent fuel and there should be no more license extensions for the Three-Mile Island-2 spent fuel pad at the laboratory, according to the complaint.
A DOE spokesperson declined comment, directing inquiries to the Department of Justice.
DOE provides interim storage for about 325 metric tons of spent fuel at INL but is not meeting obligations under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which can include “impact” payments to communities, according to the suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Idaho.
The suit comes as “DOE has offered funding to communities who are merely willing to participate in a discussion about hosting an interim storage facility, which DOE has no current statutory authority to establish or operate,” according to the document.
Butte County provides a slew of services benefitting INL, including planning for transportation, infrastructure, law enforcement, fire-fighting and emergency services, according to the 49-page document.
Further, the county’s “culture and economic livelihood is now inextricably linked,” to INL and “continues to be a staunch supporter” of the lab, according to the filing.
Planning for a high-level waste site in Nevada “was effectively terminated in 2010, when DOE attempted to withdraw its Yucca Mountain license application,” according to the suit, which adds that electric utilities no longer pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund following a court decision. The fund, however, has a balance of about $45 billion, with interest adding about $1.5-billion annually.
