Font ResizeOpposition mounted this week against a federal court ruling that limits the power of a regional waste compact to restrict radioactive waste going to disposal facilities like the one operated in Tooele County by EnergySolutions Inc.
Nothing short of states' rights are at stake in a federal court ruling on the government authority over radioactive waste headed to EnergySolutions Inc.'s Utah disposal site.
In filing a friend-of-the-court brief Thursday in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, New Mexico joined a growing line of opponents to a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart. It basically said EnergySolutions no longer has to answer to the Northwest Interstate Compact on low-level radioactive waste.
Utah, the Northwest Compact and the Rocky Mountain Compact, which share a low-level waste disposal site in Hanford, Wash., are appealing Stewart's ruling, and they filed papers in the case last week.
Six regional compacts, joined by New Mexico and the Council of State Governments, weighed in Thursday. And, with all the papers filed Thursday, eight of the nation's ten congressionally established compacts have weighed in the effort to overturn Stewart's ruling. Compacts represent all but six states. The two remaining compacts, which manage waste within eight states, have through Tuesday to join the fray.
EnergySolutions restated its view Thursday that it is happy to see the appeals process moving forward and confident
New Mexico said it wants to see the Stewart ruling thrown out.
"If the decision of the District Court is allowed to stand," said its court papers, "New Mexico and other compact states would be powerless to prevent radioactive waste from being imported."
The Midwest Compact brief defended the 23-year-old system for managing low-level radioactive waste.
"More now than ever," it said in court papers, "the congressionally mandated system of regional management of [this waste] must be fostered and protected."
The Atlantic Compact was joined by four other compacts and the 50-state Council of State Governments in asking the appeals court to overturn Stewart's ruling to prevent host states from becoming the same sort of national dumping grounds that prompted Congress to create the compact system.
"The compact system was intended to be a solution to the serious low-level radioactive waste disposal problems that existed in the 1970s," the court papers said. "The District Court's ruling does nothing but undermine that solution and foreshadow a return to the crisis that plagued the nation prior to the implementation of the compact system."
There are just three low-level waste sites in the United States. EnergySolutions operates one in the Atlantic Compact in addition to the Utah site, which is located in the boundaries of the Northwest Compact.
