NUKE WASTE RULING COULD STOP HAULERS.Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer A judge's ruling challenging the state's easing of rules for dumping of low-level nuclear waste in landfills likely will prompt a temporary halt to all shipments of material from the Santa Susana Santa Susana can refer to several places:
Simi Hills is located on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, United States. They run east-west and they extend 26 miles east-west, and 7 miles north-south. , Rocketdyne officials said Tuesday. The Daily News reported last week that low-level radioactive waste Noun 1. low-level radioactive waste - (medicine) radioactive waste consisting of objects that have been briefly exposed to radioactivity (as in certain medical tests) from the field lab in the hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley had been dumped at the Bradley Landfill in Sun Valley for much of the past decade, leading to an outcry from waste regulators and civic leaders. A ruling by a Sacramento Superior Court judge earlier this month has further complicated the problem of disposing of the waste generated from cleanup of Santa Susana. The judge ruled that state officials failed to comply with environmental laws when they issued regulations that allowed the dumping of nuclear material in local landfills. Rocketdyne spokesman Dan Beck said the judge's ruling means the waste likely will be kept on site until the issue is resolved. ``I think we would need some sort of determination from the state or DOE (U.S. Department of Energy) before we proceed,'' Beck said. ``We're not going to ship any material that has not been blessed by any agency to be sent to the appropriate facility.'' Activists who have argued that the cleanup levels allow too much contamination to be passed along as clean waste to local landfills said they expected Rocketdyne will have to use nuclear waste dumps in the future. ``This is a great victory for protecting the public from unnecessary radiation exposure,'' Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, lead plaintiff in the Sacramento case, said in a statement. ``The Davis administration had deregulated radioactive waste, and the court has found the action illegal.'' The field lab, which is undergoing a multimillion-dollar federal cleanup, had conducted nuclear research for decades before shutting down those operations in the late 1980s. In a separate development Tuesday, a Los Angeles city panel recommended having the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise pollution, and radiation and to ensure the safe handling and work with the Department of Energy to determine risk at the site in a pilot project. The City Council's Environment and Waste Quality Management Committee urged the city to ask California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to seek the action to cover the cost of cleanup at the Rocketdyne site. The DOE's Michael Lopez insisted that no radioactive material radioactive material Radiation A substance that contains unstable–radioactive–atoms that give off radiation as they decay. See Radioactive decay. is being dumped at the Bradley Landfill now, with any such items going to landfills in Nevada, Utah or north of Bakersfield. ``I think this is the only way we can be assured it will be done correctly,'' Councilman Nate Holden said. The state Department of Health Services Department of Health Services may refer to:
``We're looking at the effect of the decision,'' said DHS DHS Department of Homeland Security (USA) DHS Department of Human Services DHS Department of Health Services DHS Demographic and Health Surveys DHS Dirhams (Morocco national currency) spokeswoman Lea Brooks. ``We don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. . We're looking at a lot of things.'' Judge Gail D. Ohanesian struck down cleanup regulations put in place last fall by the Department of Health Services for decommissioned nuclear sites. The new regulations had allowed the sites to be cleaned so that the maximum radiation exposure would be 25 millirem mil·li·rem n. Abbr. mrem One thousandth (10-3) of a rem. , in line with federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), an independent U.S. government commission, created by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and charged with licensing and regulating civilian use of nuclear energy to protect the public and the environment. regulations and most states. A 15 millirem standard is being used at Santa Susana, allowing an estimated potential cancer risk of one in 3,333 - not as strict as the one in 1 million potential cancer risk activists want and the EPA EPA eicosapentaenoic acid. EPA abbr. eicosapentaenoic acid EPA, n.pr See acid, eicosapentaenoic. EPA, n. strives for. In her April 10 ruling, Ohanesian said the state Department of Health Services failed to conduct a review under the California Environmental Quality Act The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California law (California Public Resources Code section 21000 et seq.) passed in 1970, shortly after the Federal Government passed the National Environmental Policy Act. , and failed to consider alternatives to the federal 25 millirem level. ``By failing to discuss and consider alternatives, respondents have violated the California Administrative Procedures Act,'' the judge wrote. The DHS has said its regulations were not aimed at governing landfills, and simply put state rules in line with federal regulations. Brooks said the state was considering whether to appeal or conduct a full review. Staff Writer Rick Orlov contributed to this report. |
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