A Louisiana state court has thrown out all of the state environmental permits granted to Louisiana Energy Services, and told the company to try again.
The state's First Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the permits based on a suit brought by Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (SCLDF) and Citizens Against Nuclear Trash (CANT), which argued that LES had not complied with state environmental guidelines.
Louisiana Energy Services (LES) is a consortium of companies, dominated by the European firm Urenco, which since 1989 has been wanting to build a private uranium enrichment plant near Homer, Louisiana.
The court ruled that the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) had not complied with state law in evaluating the potential environmental impacts of the proposed LES plant.
The DEQ must now go back and attempt to justify its granting of state permits. Although the case was brought by SCLDF and CANT on procedural grounds--that DEQ had not done the work--the two groups now will be able to challenge DEQ's findings on substantive grounds--including whether the site for the plant was chosen for environmentally racist reasons.
Meanwhile, an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which since 1991 has been hearing contentions on the LES license application, issued its first initial decision on April 26--the tenth anniversary of Chernobyl.
The decision covered a variety of issues raised by CANT during hearings on the license, but reflected mostly concerns about emergency planning.
Although the decision essentially approves the license--pending further ASLB decisions--it also requires LES to meet NRC emergency response standards, as defined in an agency regulatory guide. LES and NRC had argued that the guide was not the equivalent of a regulation, therefore it did not need to be precisely met. But the ASLB disagreed, and said that LES must institute a variety of emergency measures, and must meet the regulatory guide's criteria, before a license can be granted.
In doing so, the ASLB ruled that LES had not made a showing that radioactive and chemical releases possible from the plant "would not exceed certain protective action guides."
Although the ASLB decision is hardly a "deal-breaker;" LES had agreed to meet the guidelines--two more ASLB decisions, on much more controversial issues including environmental racism and funding and mechanisms for radioactive waste disposal, remain to be issued.
DOE MUST TAKE LES' WASTE
LES and its parent consortium Urenco received another bit of good news on April 26. That day, President Clinton signed a mammoth piece of legislation known as the "Balanced Budget Downpayment Act."
Virtually hidden in the middle of the bill was a provision to completely privatize the U.S. Enrichment Corporation. And stuck in this provision was one which requires the Department of Energy to take the 300 14-ton canisters worth of radioactive and hazardous depleted uranium the LES plant would produce every year. LES would have to reimburse DOE for its costs. That DOE has no place to store its own depleted uranium, much less that from LES, was apparently of little concern to the bill's drafters.
Democracy seemed of little concern as well. While, the provisions mirrored a bill (S.755) which had been passed by the Senate Energy Committee (a similar bill had passed the House Commerce Committee), neither bill had ever been considered on the Floor of either body. Instead, it seems as if a member of the conference committee on the budget bill--most likely Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.)--added the provision in conference committee, assuring that there could be no floor debate on the controversial LES provision (41 national and regional organizations had opposed the provision in a letter to the Senate Energy Committee last summer).
URENCO & SPY INVESTIGATION
In other news, in January Urenco acknowledged that it is conducting an internal investigation into how blueprints for its top-secret uranium enrichment technology ended up in the hands of Iraq.
West German officials reportedly have called the breach of security "the worst case of German nuclear export violations ever."
Apparently, former Urenco employees had stolen the blueprints for the company's advanced gas centrifuges, and sold them to the Iraqis.
It was well-known, and reported extensively in the Monitor, that Urenco technology had wound up in Iraq--what has been unclear is how it got there.
The Urenco investigation, as it was certainly meant to do, seems to clear the company itself from wrongdoing, but makes equally clear that Urenco has little handle on its staff and is nearly powerless to prevent unauthorized use of its technology--yet another issue the U.S. Department of Energy and NRC should examine closely before allowing this company to operate in the U.S.
Ironically, the ASLB threw out all of CANT's contentions related to nuclear security for the proposed LES plant.