18 February 1999 -- Omaha World Herald
Nebraska May Soon Exit Waste Compact
BY ROBYNN TYSVER
Lincoln - After 16 years of acrimony, Nebraska may be on the verge of severing its relationship with a five-state compact formed to develop a regional waste facility.
WORLD-HERALD BUREAUBut the state's utility companies urged lawmakers to make sure the state has a plan for disposing of its low-level radioactive waste before leaving the compact.
Both sides of the issue gathered Wednesday before the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee to de-bate the merits of Legislative Bill 530, which calls for the state to leave the compact.
The timing couldn't be better for the bill, as it comes on the heels of the state's denial of a permit for the proposed waste site in Boyd County and a law firm's report that the state would only have to give a five-year notice and $125,000 to get out of the compact.
"I think the consensus is it's time to pull out," said Sen. Ed Schrock of Elm Creek, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. "But having said that, I don't think the problem of nuke waste is going to go away."
In 1983, Nebraska joined four other states - Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri - in a compact to build a regional warehouse for low-level radioactive waste.
The partnership turned sour in 1987 when Nebraska was chosen as the host site for the waste facility. It got even more acrimonious when the compact's developer, U S Ecology, chose Boyd County as the site in 1989.
Last year, the state denied U S Ecology a permit, citing concerns that the proposed site was located on wetlands.
The matter is now in court. Some of the utility companies that were footing the $74 million bill to get a permit filed a lawsuit in January against Nebraska seeking to recoup the money.
In addition, a report released last month from a Washington, D.C., law firm indicated that the state can readily leave the compact by giving five years' notice. Its only penalty would be $25,000 each of those five years in membership dues.
Spokesmen for Nebraska's two public utilities that operate nuclear generating plants said their companies oppose getting out of the compact without a plan to dispose of waste.
"Simply withdrawing is not a plan," said John McClure, vice president of Nebraska Public Power District.
"It's an action that has no solution," said Bill Neal, division manager at Omaha Public Power District.
Others said the state should not wait until developing a plan to begin the five-year process of getting out of the compact.
"The moment is now to withdraw," said Pat Knapp, a Lincoln lawyer who represents the Boyd County Local Monitoring Committee.
The state realizes it has an obligation to deal with its waste, and there is no need of a law to establish that obligation, Knapp said.
And, she said, the solution was rather simple. She urged the utility companies to continue on their own to site a facility without outside dumpers.
"I think they should take the design they paid millions of dollars for and go find dry land," Knapp said.
The state would have a "time buffer" of between 10 to 15 years before it had to open a waste facility, said Sen. Chris Beutler of Lincoln, a longtime observer of the waste controversy.
He said he thinks that a waste site in South Carolina will continue to accept out-of-state waste for several years and that the utility companies could store the waste on-site if they had to.
"I think we could go 10 to 15 years before the situation became critical," said Beutler, who did not attend Wednesday's hearing but supports the bill.
Several Boyd County residents who have been active opponents of the site testified in support of the bill, venting their frustrations at the compact.
Craig Zeisler said there's no way to restore harmony within the compact, which he said consistently has sided 4-1 against Nebraska.
He also said that with the rejection of Boyd County, and the anti-Nebraska bias on the compact, there's no question that Nebraska would be rechosen as a host site.
"It's been twisted and warped," Zeisler said, "and it's turned into nothing but bad faith."
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