The Buffalo News

By DOUGLAS L. TURNER
News Washington Bureau Chief
6/30/2005

WASHINGTON - The federal government would assume full responsibility for the final cleanup of the 25-year-old nuclear waste dump at West Valley under legislation proposed Wednesday by freshman Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport.

The bill's sponsors, including Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, said it will end a long legal standoff between the state and bureaucrats in the Department of Energy over who has the ultimate responsibility for making the site - home to some of the world's most dangerous nuclear waste - safe again.

The bill's backers also maintain it will save New York State millions in the cost of finally closing the place and stopping the leaching of nuclear residues into Lakes Erie and Ontario.

Begun in 1980, the West Valley Demonstration Project has already cost $2.2 billion, with $200 million coming from state funds.

"The federal government has a responsibility to properly rehabilitate the West Valley site," said Reynolds, a member of the House Republican leadership.

"This legislation will mandate that the Department of Energy take possession of the site and foot the entire bill for its cleanup - and rightfully so. We are fighting to make certain that West Valley is given the attention and resources that it deserves."

The bill, which is also co-sponsored by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-Utica, and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, has the endorsement of Gov. George E. Pataki and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which oversees operations at the state-owned facility.

However, it is strongly opposed by Seth Wochensky, spokesman for the Coalition on West Valley Wastes, a citizen group that has been monitoring the cleanup for a decade.

"It is going to be a huge mistake to transfer control of this to the Department of Energy," he said. The transfer, he said, "will undermine the little control over the project that the state has now."


e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com



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