Feds backtrack on Ward Valley
WASHINGTON - The Department of Interior has rescinded the offer it made last year to transfer land at Ward Valley, Calif., to the state for use as a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. Instead, the federal government has ordered new environmental and scientific studies that will take at least one year to complete, Deputy Secretary of Interior John Garamendi announced.
Interior will compile a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the site, which has been licensed by California regulators and already has been studied for 15 years. It also has asked Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to conduct a study of tritium migration at Ward Valley. Tritium, which was deposited as fallout from nuclear tests in the 1950s and 60s, serves as a marker of water migration. ...