Senate votes for easing of nuclear cleanup requirements

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Senate approves change in defense nuclear cleanup requirements

Associated Press (Longview, WA, Daily News)
June 3, 2004



WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Thursday agreed to ease cleanup requirements
for tanks holding millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste from
Cold War-era bomb making.

Senate critics said the change would leave poisonous sludge in
underground tanks and risk contamination of groundwater.

An attempt to block the change failed by the narrowest of margins.
Senators voted 48-48 on an amendment offered by Sen. Maria Cantwell,
D-Wash., that would have stripped the provision from a defense
authorization bill.

The provision allows the Energy Department to reclassify radioactive
sludge in 51 tanks at a South Carolina nuclear site so it can be left in
place and covered by concrete, instead of being entombed in the Nevada desert.

While the plan has been approved by South Carolina officials, it brought
sharp criticism from officials in Washington and Idaho who feared the
change would put intense pressure on them to agree to a similar cleanup
plan at nuclear sites in their states.


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for the entire article, see
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/06/03/nation_world/news23.prt

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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