Ward Valley radioactive waste facility regulatory update

The California Supreme court denied a petition to review a lower court decision upholding licensing of the Ward Valley low-level radioactive waste (LLW) disposal facility. The ruling precludes further legal challenges to the license the state Department of Health Services issued in 1993 to US Ecology Inc. to build and operate the facility.

However, the outcome of the effort to open a dump for biomedical and nuclear industry waste is far from over, because Gov. Pete Wilson and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt are at loggerheads over a final agreement to transfer the land to the state from the federal government. ...