By Dan Horn
Enquirer staff writer

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro vowed Friday to sue the U.S. Department of Energy if it tries to remove radioactive waste from silos at Fernald and store it in steel shipping crates at the Crosby Township site.

Petro said temporarily storing the waste in the crates would pose an environmental hazard to ground water and the surrounding area.

The threat to sue comes after Department of Energy officials in charge of the Fernald nuclear cleanup said they could begin removing waste from the silos by the end of June, even though they are not yet able to send it to a permanent storage facility.

Plans to send the waste to a site in Nevada are in limbo because the Nevada attorney general has threatened to block the move, claiming the disposal is illegal and unsafe.

Despite that problem, officials at Fernald said they could go ahead with removal anyway and store the waste in sealed crates until a permanent disposal site is found.

Petro said such a move would violate an agreement between state and federal officials that requires the waste to be moved from the site as soon as it is removed from the silos.

"Ohioans should not be asked to accept this intolerable deviation from the approved plans," Petro said in a statement. "Any storage of the wastes outside the silos creates a risk to Ohioans and their environment."

He outlined his concerns in an "intent to sue" letter sent to Fernald officials Friday. The letter gives 60-day notice of a possible lawsuit and is required under federal environmental laws.

The waste in the silos is a byproduct of 40 years of work at Fernald, which processed uranium for the production of nuclear weapons.

Officials at Fernald said temporarily storing waste from the silos at the site is only an option, not something they have decided to do. A Department of Energy spokesman in Washington, Joe Davis, did not comment directly on Petro's letter but said the department is seeking to "resolve the issues that have been raised."

Christopher Jones, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said it does not make sense to start the waste removal process until a permanent site for disposal is found.

"The integrity of the existing silos should not be compromised until we are sure that the wastes inside will be properly disposed of," Jones said.