KEEP YELLOWSTONE NUCLEAR FREE News Update - April 5, 2000 - 7th Issue Welcome to the weekly online newsletter of Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free. Our goal is to bring you the latest developments, news, meeting dates, and actions you can take to 'Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free.' We welcome your comments and suggestions. NOTE: The News Update will be taking a 'Spring Break' for the next two weeks. __________________________ Mark Your Calendar for a Victory Celebration! Date: Monday, April 24 Time: 5:30 p.m. Place: Snow King Resort, Jackson Hole Come celebrate our success with your friends and neighbors and family. A great band, casual BBQ dinner, and fun games for the children, and knowing we have made a difference, will make this a very special evening. No need to reply - Just come! This celebration is a thank you for your tireless efforts to Stop The Incinerator, and everything is compliments of KYNF. __________________________ WE NEED MORE OFFICE SPACEáCAN YOU HELP? We are looking for a larger and more visible space for the KYNF office. If you know of any space available for a reasonable rate, please call Tom Patricelli, KYNF Executive Director at (307) 732-2040. ___________________________ And here are two national news stories which didn't make the March 27th 'Special Edition.' March 28, 2000 - New York Times Govt. Drops Plan To Burn Nuke Waste By The Associated Press BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The U.S. government has dropped plans to build a nuclear waste incinerator 100 miles upwind from the scenic Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, the nation's oldest and largest. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on Monday confirmed a settlement with environmental groups that had sued over the plan. Critics feared that toxic particles would have drifted into Wyoming and laced the land and water with PCBs and radiation. At the core of the controversy is 130,000 cubic yards of waste at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls. Half of the waste is supposed to go to an underground facility outside Carlsbad, N.M., the nation's only long-term storage site for radioactive waste. The Energy Department had contracted with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. to build a facility at the site that will compact up to 90 percent of the storage-bound waste and an incinerator to burn the rest. Burning was to be used for waste too laden with PCBs for storage or containing materials too dangerous to ship. The anti-incinerator movement was born last summer in the scenic Jackson Hole region of northwest Wyoming, where celebrities like Harrison Ford have built second homes. Opponents -- who had the services of Jackson attorney Gerry Spence -- said the government planned to allow the burning of waste that contains about one metric ton of plutonium. Energy officials hope to begin construction of the treatment plant -- without an incinerator -- as early as May. They estimated the cost of the facility at $500 million, less than half the estimate with the incinerator. Richardson said he also agreed to commission a panel to study technological alternatives to burning nuclear waste nationwide. ____________________ U.S. HALTS PLAN FOR IDAHO NUCLEAR INCINERATOR OUTCRY FORCING ENERGY AGENCY TO LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE TO BURNING By Judith Graham Chicago Tribune Staff Writer March 28, 2000 DENVER -- Responding to intense public pressure, the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday announced it will halt plans to build a nuclear waste incinerator in Idaho, about 100 miles west of Yellowstone National Park. Instead, the agency said it will appoint a panel to study alternatives to burning nuclear waste, in Idaho and across the nation. "We're ecstatic. This is a great victory for the people of Wyoming and the U.S.," said Tom Patricelli, executive director of Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, a citizens group. The group had claimed that incineration would release radioactive materials into the environment, potentially causing irreparable harm to people and wildlife. Opposition to the government's plans flared up last summer when residents of Jackson Hole, Wyo., learned that nuclear waste laced with plutonium would be burned at the Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, a vast complex in the southeastern part of that state, just across the Grand Tetons from Western Wyoming. After long-time Jackson Hole residents Gerry Spence, actor Harrison Ford, and World Bank President James Wolfensohn took up the cause, the effort to stop the incinerator became a cause celebre, gaining national attention. Spence, a lawyer who represented the family of Karen Silkwood, spearheaded a lawsuit brought against the DOE last September in U.S. District Court in Wyoming and amended in January to include class action plaintiffs. The lawsuits argued that the government had failed to conduct an adequate environmental analysis of the proposed incinerator, neglecting to examine the potential impact on Wyoming or solicit input from its residents. Two of the most popular national parks in the United States, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, are in western Wyoming, in range of prevailing winds that blow from the Idaho nuclear facility, they noted. Under pressure from Jackson Hole's citizens, Wyoming Sen. Craig Thomas called for hearings on the Idaho nuclear incinerator and its environmental impact on national parks, scheduled for April 6. By settling the lawsuit late Sunday night, after about a week of negotiations, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson avoids the potentially embarrassing Senate hearings. Under the written settlement agreement, the department said it will not pursue two permits needed to build the incinerator. They were due to be issued soon by the State of Idaho and the Environmental Protection Agency. The final hearings on these permits ended earlier this year, and construction was to begin as early as April. Instead of burning the waste to prepare it for permanent storage in an underground site in New Mexico, the Department of Energy will condense it through a process known as supercompaction. Anywhere from 83 percent to 97 percent of the 65,000 cubic meters of plutonium-laced waste, currently stored above ground at the Idaho laboratory, will be prepared for storage at New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant through this process. In its current form, the waste does not meet requirements for permanent storage in the deep caverns in Carlsbad, N.M., where the detritus of the Cold War is being sent. But under a legal agreement with Idaho, the government has an obligation to remove the waste from Idaho. Now that the incinerator has been stopped, attention will turn to the contractor that the Energy Department chose for its new $1.2 billion nuclear waste facility at the Idaho complex. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., which won the privatized cleanup contract at the lab, has admitted that it falsified quality data for reprocessed nuclear fuels sent to Japan, and is under investigation by the British government. * Visit our website at: www.yellowstonenuclearfree.com for information and links to other articles. * If you have comments, suggestions, or would like to be removed from this list, email us at: jweaver@wyoming.com * If you have a friend who would like to receive this News Update, have them email their name, address, phone number and email address to: jweaver@wyoming.com