See Also
Entire Text of the 1995 Settlement Agreement
Contact INL Oversight
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Boise,
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Idaho
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Idaho
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ph:
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INL
Oversight Staff List
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Contamination at INL:
The 1995 Settlement Agreement
in Short
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| Synopsis of Agreement |
In
October of 1995, the state of Idaho, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Department
of Energy reached agreement (most often called the Settlement Agreement)
settling a lawsuit filed by the state to prevent shipment of spent
nuclear fuel to the INL for storage. Highlights of the agreement
include the following:
- The state of Idaho will allow a total of 1,135
shipments of spent fuel to come to the INL for interim storage
over a 40-year period. Of those shipments, 575 will come from
the Navy. The rest will come from other DOE sites, foreign research
reactors (if DOE chooses to accept that fuel), university reactors
and a small amount from private companies directly supporting
DOE research and development activities.
- DOE will remove all spent nuclear fuel from
Idaho no later than 2035.
- DOE will treat all high-level waste at the INL,
in preparation for final disposal elsewhere, by a target date
of 2035.
- DOE will treat transuranic and alpha-contaminated
mixed waste now stored at the INL and begin shipments to the Waste
Isolation Pilot Plant for disposal no later than 1999. All transuranic
waste will be removed from the state by a target date of Dec.
31, 2015, and no later than Dec. 31, 2018.
- All spent fuel will be placed in dry storage
by Dec. 31, 2023, and such facilities will be placed, if technically
feasible, at a point not above the Snake River Plan Aquifer.
- If DOE fails to remove all spent fuel by 2035,
the state may levy a fine of $60,000 per day. If DOE fails to
meet any of the agreement milestones at any point, the state may
ask the federal court to halt any further spent fuel shipments
to the INL.
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| Why is the Settlement
Agreement good for Idaho? |
| First, this agreement
gets nuclear waste out of Idaho. Idaho is now the only state in the
nation that has a court order mandating that almost all federal nuclear
waste leave state boundaries by a specific date. No other state in
the nation has such a legally binding commitment. Second, this agreement
forces the federal government to dry up ALL the highly radioactive
liquid wastes, which greatly reduces the risks to the aquifer. Third,
we have prevented Idaho from becoming the dumping ground for the nation's
commercial spent nuclear fuel. Fourth, we have protected the economy
of eastern Idaho. |
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How much nuclear
waste was at the INL before the Settlement
Agreement was signed? |
| According to Idaho's INL
Oversight Program, there were 261 metric tons of heavy metal from
spent fuel, 65,000 cubic meters of stored transuranic wastes, another
62,000 cubic meters of buried transuranic waste, approximately 2 million
gallons of high-level liquid waste and 3,700 cubic meters of calcined
(dried liquid) waste already stored at the INL when Governor Batt
took office. Until the Settlement Agreement there was no legally binding
commitment to remove any of this waste from Idaho until Governor Batt
reached his agreement with federal officials. |
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| How many shipments
will leave Idaho as a result of this agreement? |
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DEQ's
INL Oversight Division estimates that approximately 10,851 shipments
of nuclear material will leave Idaho. The first shipments began
leaving Idaho in early 1999. The last shipments should leave Idaho
by 2035.
- Approximately 3,051 shipments of spent fuel will leave Idaho.
- Approximately 7,800 shipments of transuranic material will leave
Idaho for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
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| Is shipping nuclear
waste safe? |
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Over
the past five decades, there have been over 2,500 shipments of spent
fuel in the United States. There has not been a single death or
injury from the radioactive nature of the cargo.
Railroad casks for shipping
spent fuel are 14 inches thick; truck casks are smaller. If a person
stood for about an hour, six feet from a truck cask loaded with
spent fuel, that person would receive about the same radiation as
a person who gets a chest x-ray. A person 100 feet away from a truck
cask going 24 miles per hour would receive 10,000 times less radiation
than a person exposed to a chest x-ray. |
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| Is commercial spent
fuel from nuclear reactors coming to Idaho? |
| No! This is one of the
major benefits of the agreement. Over the next forty years, the U.S.
will generate enough fuel to make 92,000 shipments. The Idaho agreement
specifically prohibits commercial spent fuel from coming to Idaho.
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| What incentives
does the federal government have to fulfill its obligations? |
| If the DOE fails to perform
the cleanup activities mandated in the agreement, shipments stop.
The agreement also provides substantial incentives for the DOE to
open an interim or permanent repository. Once the DOE opens an interim
or permanent repository that accepts Idaho's spent fuel, the state
many renegotiate the timetable and number of shipments of spent fuel
in Idaho. These additional shipments would only be allowed into the
state for treatment and prompt removal to a repository. By opening
a repository, the DOE would be able to fulfill all of its contractual
commitments to accept spent fuel from other locations. The DOE's failure
to fulfill these contractual commitments is costing the agency millions
of dollars annually. |
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(All answers from this section are from Answers
to Questions about Idaho's Historic Nuclear Waste Removal Agreement,
prepared by the Office of the Governor with the Idaho Attorney General's
office and the DEQ's INL Oversight Division.)
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