Radioactive Waste: Answers to Questions Related to the Proposed Ward Valley Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility

摘要

You asked us to answer a series of questions regarding a proposed facility fordisposing of commercial generated low-level radioactive waste at a site in Ward Valley, California. The proposed site is on federal land under the juridiction of the Department of the Interior. In 1992, California's Department of Health Services asked Interior to sell the site ot the state under the authority granted to the Secretary of the Interior by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. By the fall of 1995, negotiations on the land transfer had reached an impasse. California would not accept Interior's position that the transfer must be conditioned to authorize Interior to enforce, in the court, the state's compliance with recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences for additional tests at the Ward Valley site. Then, in February 1996, Interior announced that it would conduct the tests recommended by the Academy and prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement before making a land-transfer decision.