Citizens of the San Luis Valley want full disclosure of the potential impacts associated with the transport and temporary storage of radioactive waste.
Lawsuit calls on feds to conduct a full-scale environmental review
By Summit Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — Citizens of Colorado’s San Luis Valley say they want the U.S. Department of Energy to analyze the impacts of transporting radioactive, hazardous and toxic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory through the state of Colorado via a storage and truck-to-rail transfer site in Conejos County.
Two groups are going to federal court to try and compel the federal government to review the operation with an Environmental Impact Statement, a procedure designed to disclose all potential impacts, and find the least damaging choice with a thorough evaluation of alternatives, as well as identifying effective mitigation.
Aside from any potential immediate impacts, the groups are concerned that Antonito could become established as a de facto transit area, opening the door to similar materials being brought through the area from other federal facilities.
The two groups are Conejos County Clean Water, Inc., a citizen’s group based in Antonito, Colorado, and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, a group based in Alamosa, Colorado, and Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, a non-governmental organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
Residents of the area were never officially notified of the shipping and storage activities, according to Colorado attorney Jeff Parsons, who will represent the groups along with Travis Stills, of the nonprofit Energy Minerals Law Center.
In November 2009, they discovered the active transfer of Los Alamos National Laboratory wastes by crane from flat-bed trucks to rail gondolas less than a quarter mile from the town and within 100 yards of a headwaters tributary to the Rio Grande.
The waste was contained in soft sacks, each of which holds 24,000 pounds of waste. Neither local governments nor residents were notified of any plans by the Department of Energy, The Los Alamos lab, the railroad company or EnergySolutions (a private Utah-based corporation which operates a radioactive and hazardous waste dump 75 miles west of Salt Lake City) to transport and transfer radioactive, hazardous and toxic waste in Conejos County. The County halted the activities pending compliance with local land use laws.
“This is a case of the DOE and (its) contractors trying to impose their will on local communities without providing notice and without any opportunity for a fair impact review,” said Andrea Guajardo, member of the board of directors of Conejos County Clean Water, Inc. “That (they) would attempt to force these impacts on Conejos County, the poorest county in Colorado, without engaging the public in a meaningful way is inexcusable – and illegal,” Ms. Guajardo added.
The Department of Energy did not respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon. Generally, federal agencies won’t comment on matters under litigation.
Parsons said the community groups have been working behind the scenes to resolve the issue with support from Congressman John Salazar for the past year. So far, the Department of Energy has simply said that it has done an environmental study that shows the impacts of digging up the contaminated soils at Los Alamos. But that document does not disclose any impacts associated with subsequent storage and transport of the waste.
In 2005, LANL and DOE signed a consent decree with the New Mexico Environment Department agreeing to clean up certain waste dumps at the LANL facility by 2015. The waste that was shipped is part of a “cleanup campaign” funded by stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“We have a moral obligation to protect the headwaters of the Rio Grande,” San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council director Christine Canaly said, “it’s imperative the public be engaged in this process.”
DOE officials recently stated that waste from other DOE sites, including Sandia National Laboratory, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Pantex Site, located north of Amarillo, Texas, could also be transferred at the Antonito location once it is established as a transfer site for toxic, hazardous, and radioactive wastes.
“DOE will continue to generate radioactive, toxic, and hazardous wastes and EnergySolutions is looking for ways to take a larger cut of the DOE waste for its dump,” stated Joni Arends, director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. “The community efforts to protect the San Luis Valley and the headwaters of the Rio Grande are absolutely necessary for now and in the future. If the transfer site in Antonito is opened, DOE will utilize it to the fullest extent and the people of the Valley could expect more and more shipments from other DOE sites.”
