PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE, Aug. 2, 2005

Citizens' Groups Expose Seriously Flawed LES Radioactive Waste Disposal Plan

Public Interest Groups Continue to Press Legal Challenge as Nuclear Agency Hosts
Public
Meeting on Its Environmental and Safety Evaluations of Uranium Enrichment
Facility

As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hosts a public meeting this
evening in
Eunice, New Mexico, on its environmental and safety evaluations of a proposed
uranium
enrichment plant near there, the legal challenge being pursued by citizens
groups Public
Citizen (PC) and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) is bringing
to light
the flawed radioactive waste disposal strategy of the company that is seeking a
license to
build and operate the plant.

PC and NIRS are engaged in an intervention against the license application of
Louisiana
Energy Services (LES), a European-led consortium, which they contend lacks a
plausible
strategy for the disposition and disposal of the very large quantities of
depleted uranium
(DU)—a long-lived radioactive and hazardous waste—that would be produced by the
plant.  The issue has become the most contentious concern in the licensing case.

"There remain serious unresolved questions about the ultimate destination of the
extremely harmful radioactive waste that would be produced by the LES plant,"
said
Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass energy program. 
"Each option
presented by LES and the NRC is flawed, and there is a great likelihood that the
agreement
between LES and the State of New Mexico to remove the plant's waste from the
State will
not be enforced."

Evaluations performed by Public Citizen and NIRS and their expert consultants at
the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research have shown that the waste
disposal
options presented by LES are not reasonable strategies to handle the massive
amount of
uranium waste that would be produced by the plant:
• WCS option.  LES has identified the Waste Control Specialists (WCS) site in
West
Texas—less than two miles from the site of its proposed National Enrichment
Facility (NEF)
—as a probable disposal destination for its DU waste. But an investigation
performed by
Public Citizen and NIRS experts reveals serious flaws in WCS's application for a
license to
establish a long-term low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) dump at its Andrew
County,
Texas site. Gross inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the application
demonstrate this
company's lack of fitness to accept waste from LES.  Indeed, the Texas
Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the licensing authority in Texas, severely
criticized WCS's
license application and site in a July 20 letter to the company, warning WCS
that its facility
design "appears inadequate to appropriately stabilize certain wastes for
disposal,
segregate different classes of radioactive waste, [and] verify by testing the
accurate
classification of waste received for disposal," among other problems, such as an
"inadequate" decommissioning plan, security plan, and emergency plan.

• Envirocare option.  Envirocare of Utah, LLC, a LLRW dump licensed by Utah to
accept "Class A" waste for disposal, is cited in the NRC's final Environmental
Impact
Statement (EIS) as a disposal option for LES.  The NRC notes that Envirocare's
operating
license authorizes it to accept DU in oxide form in such quantities as are
expected to be
produced by LES.  However, recent changes in Envirocare's operating license
bring into
question whether the company may legally accept waste from LES.  In February
2005,
Envirocare withdrew its application to accept "Class B" and "Class C" LLRW—more
highly-
radioactive forms—for disposal.  Though the NRC has termed depleted uranium as
low-
level waste, it has not specified a subcategory, and Public Citizen and NIRS
believe that its
proper classification would be "Greater Than Class C" waste, which would
preclude
Envirocare as a disposal option.  Moreover, it appears that an amendment  to
Envirocare's
operating license, formally adopted on June 13, 2005, would effectively prohibit
the
company from accepting depleted uranium waste in the great quantities that would
be
generated by LES, eliminating it as a disposal option.

• DOE option.  The final EIS cites the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
Nevada
Test Site as a possible long-term disposal site for LES's depleted uranium if
ownership of
the waste is transferred to the DOE.  However, the DOE has an abysmal record of
radioactive waste management, exemplified by the massive stockpiles of DU waste
sitting
idle at sites in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee as well as the department's
failure to
properly manage the country's high-level radioactive waste, which continues to
accumulate at nuclear power plants across the country.

• Flawed deal with the State of New Mexico.  Having had most of its
contentions
excluded from hearing in the LES licensing case, the State of New Mexico has
engaged in
an effort to establish licensing conditions for LES that would require it to
ultimately
remove its DU waste from the State.  However, the enforceability of the
conditions that the
parties agreed on is unclear, and the NRC rejected the initial agreement on
those
grounds.  The parties have since offered a new Settlement Agreement that no
longer
includes as a licensing requirement the stipulation that the DOE not operate a
DU
processing plant or dispose of DU waste produced by LES within New Mexico.  The
DOE is
required to accept the plant's DU waste by law, and it is cited in the final EIS
as a disposal
option for LES.  However, the NRC has made it clear that it does not have
jurisdiction over
DU waste once it is transferred to the DOE and could not possibly enforce a
condition that
DOE remove such waste from New Mexico.

• Unrealistic cost estimates.  The cost estimates offered by LES for DU
processing
and disposal are extremely low because they are based on these flawed and
implausible
disposal options.  Proper disposal of LES's DU waste—in a deep geologic
repository—
would raise LES's waste disposal estimates exponentially.

"There is no established site in this country for the safe, long-term disposal
of depleted
uranium, and LES's half-baked plans for disposal do not hold water," said
Michael
Mariotte, executive director of NIRS.  "It would not be prudent to move forward
with this
new facility in the absence of a reasonable strategy for properly disposing of
this waste."

"The net result of LES's flawed waste disposal plans is likely to be a legacy of
long-lived
radioactive waste contamination in New Mexico," said Hauter. 

Public Citizen and NIRS will continue to challenge the license application and
waste
disposal plans of LES in hearings set for this fall.

Contact: Joseph Malherek, PC (202) 454-5109; Michael Mariotte, NIRS (202)
328-0002