WASHINGTON – It is among the most toxic substances on earth: 28,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste left over from the building of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

And as the administration and the leader of the Senate move to close down a proposed repository for it in Nevada, the Idaho National Laboratory, along with the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, could become the de facto dump sites for years.

After spending $10 billion to $12 billion studying a dump site at Yucca Mountain outside of Las Vegas, President Barack Obama is fulfilling a campaign promise by killing it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada also stands to benefit as he faces a difficult re-election fight next year.

But local leaders and lawmakers from the sites where the waste is now stored are not happy.

“We’re all concerned,” said Jared Fuhriman, the mayor of Idaho Falls, the largest city near INL. “Where are we going to store the waste that we have? How many millions and millions of dollars has been spent, of taxpayer dollars, and now all the sudden, there doesn’t seem to be any future for it? We’re going to have to store them somewhere.”

Fuhriman was echoed by Gary Petersen of the Tri-City Industrial Development Council, near the Hanford nuclear reservation.

“We don’t want to become a long-term repository without even having a discussion about it,” Petersen said.

Idaho’s governor and congressional delegation have weighed in as well, saying they’ll do whatever is in their power to force the Department of Energy to remove all nuclear waste from the state by a court-approved deadline of 2035.

“Without a permanent location to safely store nuclear waste, the role of nuclear energy as a component in our nation’s energy portfolio will be severely affected,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

If Yucca is closed, a search for a new site for a national repository likely would start with the 31 states on the original list of potential locations. In addition to Washington and Idaho, the states in which the possible sites are located include Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

Scrapping Yucca Mountain also could have national security ramifications. The Navy would have no place to permanently store the used reactor fuel that has powered its aircraft carriers and submarines.

“There is a national security dimension to the problem, as an eventual disposal site is absolutely critical to the handling of spent fuel from Defense Department weapons,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee whose district includes the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, which potentially could become a temporary storage site.

Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008

lblumenthal@mcclatchydc.com

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