Butte County, Idaho has not shown the Department of Energy’s storage of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory violates the law, but the county may amend its complaint to preserve its lawsuit, a federal district judge ruled last week.
U.S. District Court Judge David Nye on Thursday granted DOE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Butte County, but granted the motion “without prejudice,” leaving the door open for the county to amend and conceivably revive its lawsuit against the agency that runs the Idaho National Laboratory.
“Candidly, the court is not convinced Butte County’s complaint could be saved by amendment at this point,” Nye wrote in the 23-page decision.
“The barriers here are legal in nature and no additional (or different) factual allegations could change the outcome,” according to the ruling. “That said, the court also appreciates the DOE’s candor at oral argument [in October] that until it (and the court) sees what other theories Butte County may have, it is difficult to say amendment is completely futile.”
If Butte County wishes to amend its complaint, it can file a motion for leave to amend the complaint within 30 days. “A proposed amended complaint should be included, and Butte County should identify in its motion precisely how the proposed amended complaint overcomes the legal barriers addressed in this decision,” Nye wrote.
Once any amended complaint is filed, and the federal government responds, the court “will then determine which claims, if any, have been sufficiently pleaded and can proceed and which have not and will be dismissed with prejudice,” Nye said in the ruling.
Butte County filed the litigation in March 2023, arguing Idaho National Laboratory has become a default repository for spent nuclear fuel from the U.S. Navy as well as Three Mile Island-Unit 2, a commercial reactor in Pennsylvania where an infamous partial meltdown occurred in March 1979.
Judge Nye cited several legal shortcomings in Butte County’s case, saying it appeared many of the county’s contentions fail either because of failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, or being too close to arguments federal courts already rejected in a similar Butte County lawsuit.
