By Dan Klepal
Enquirer staff writer

CROSBY TWP. - The state of Nevada has no intention of making deals with the federal government when it comes to the disposal of radioactive waste from the former Fernald nuclear weapons plant in northwest Hamilton County.

Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval has threatened to file a federal suit to stop the intended disposal of 153 million pounds of Fernald's most dangerous waste from being buried in the desert at the Nevada Test Site, a giant government-owned parcel of land 65 miles outside Las Vegas.

That threat has brought to a standstill the work of removing powdery waste from one of three concrete storage "silos" at Fernald, at a cost to taxpayers of about $9,000 per day. The bill for doing nothing on Silo 3 over the past two weeks is at least $126,000 ... and counting.

The centerpiece of Nevada's legal claim is that the Fernald waste must be disposed of at a licensed Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) site. The Nevada Test Site, which has accepted and continues to accept lower-level radioactive waste from Fernald, is a DOE-run facility that is not licensed by the commission.

Department of Energy lawyers, who have promised Nevada a 45-day notice before the first shipment of waste is sent, responded with a six-page letter last week that says Nevada's legal claims are all wrong, and asks that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission be used as an independent third party to vouch for the safety and appropriateness of the plan to dump Fernald waste in Nevada. No notice has yet been given to Nevada regarding the planned shipments.

It is "worth exploring whether our legal differences can be compromised and set aside by developing a process through which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be called upon to vouchsafe" for the federal government's plan, says the letter, signed by Department of Energy General Counsel Lee Liberman Otis.

No dice, Nevada officials say.

"Under no circumstances will we negotiate," Sandoval said in response.

Bob Loux, director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects in the Nevada Governor's Office, added that the federal government's lawyers are asking his state to break federal law. Loux's agency has been battling with the federal government for more than a decade over its plan to use Yucca Mountain as a permanent dump for the country's most dangerous nuclear waste.

"They are trying to induce us into a conspiracy to break the law," Loux said. "They're saying 'Let's work together and compromise on the law.'"

"If the Department of Energy believes the NRC will sign off on its plan, we believe they ought to go ahead and get an NRC license. The instant we get the (45-day shipping) notice, we'll be in court."

Bill Taylor, the Department of Energy's second-in-command at Fernald, said the cost of keeping workers on standby at the Silo 3 cleanup will go higher starting next month. It could reach a cost of $57,000 per day, if the legal dispute stretches into late fall.

"We're not going to allow that to continue for a long, long period of time. It's just not practical," Taylor said of the standby mode, which means crews at the Silo 3 project continuously monitor and check the computer and mechanical systems they'll use to remove the waste, and continue to practice with those systems on fly ash.

Taylor said that after the 45-day notice is sent to Nevada, it will take his crews about 10 days to get ready to begin removing the material from Silo 3. Complicating the matter is a rule that says the waste cannot be removed from the silo, then stored at Fernald for any substantial length of time. That means crews might have to wait for a judge's ruling on the Nevada suit before moving forward with the job.

"I don't think (our lawyers) will ever put us in a situation where we have material half in and half out," Taylor said. "So sure, that might mean a further delay."

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E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com