A federal judge on Thursday ruled against requiring the Department of Energy to produce a new environmental impact statement for shipments of highly enriched uranium from Canada to the agency’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The ruling opens the door for shipments to begin as soon as this month.
Upward of 150 shipments, totaling 6,000 gallons of highly enriched uranyl nitrate liquid, are expected by road from the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, south through several U.S. states on the way to Savannah River. Transport was expected to begin in September 2016, but was delayed by a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Beyond Nuclear, Savannah River Site Watch, and five other nongovernmental organizations.
At issue was whether DOE had performed sufficient analysis of the potential environmental effects of the shipments, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). The department from 1996 to 2000 prepared three environmental impact statements (EIS) for its program of repatriation of U.S.-origin nuclear material from foreign research reactors, along with supplemental analyses in 2013 and 2015. It determined that no additional study was needed, having determined that shipping radioactive material in liquid form would present similar risks to the solid powder form addressed in earlier reports.
The plaintiffs countered that the shipments should be suspended, or at least a new supplemental EIS ordered, as highly radioactive material of this type had never been transported in liquid form through the U.S. by road. They said DOE had not addressed a number of possible risks, including the dangers of shipping the material near bodies of water or elevated highways, the threat of terrorist strikes, and the possibility of accidents at the Savannah River Site.
In her order Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she would order a new supplemental environmental impact statement only if it was clear that DOE had made “a clear error of judgment” or had not sufficiently considered relevant evidence and factors. “A review of DOE’s two Supplement Analyses shows that the agency did, in fact, give a hard look to a wide range of factors, evidence, and statistical analyses regarding environmental impacts in numerous different scenarios, which allowed DOE to come to the conclusion that the environmental impacts were not significantly different from those already considered in past environmental impact statements,” she wrote.
The judge also ruled against several other claims from the plaintiffs, including that DOE breached the NEPA by not conducting an environmental assessment; that the department also violated that law by failing to produce a programmatic EIS for shipments of material from nations such as Canada, Germany, and Indonesia; and that it also violated the Atomic Energy Act by not publishing an environmental assessment or supplemental EIS.
Based on her findings, Chutkan ruled in favor of DOE’s motion for summary judgment in the case. She dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.
The Department of Energy has said shipments need to begin by Feb. 17. Shipments in total are expected to take at least three years. Once at SRS, the material will be downblended and sent to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for use as reactor fuel.
In a press release Friday, representatives for the plaintiff organizations said the fight against the shipments would continue, but did not discuss specifics of future efforts.
“Citizens here don’t want to be a dumping ground for Canadian nuclear waste,” Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Watch, said in the release.
