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Monday, April 6, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Vote leaves Kansas likely choice for waste site
By DAVID WHITE Special to the Kansan
A state Senate committee's rejection of a proposal to remove Kansas from a five-state compact means that the state is still the front-runner for getting a regional nuclear waste site.
The Kansas Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 7-4 on Thursday against a motion to withdraw Kansas from the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact. The motion was an amendment to a bill passed by the House that would ban the shallow low-level nuclear waste in Kansas. The committee endorsed the House bill by
a multimillion voice vote State Sen. Francis Gordon, R-Highland, said that pulling out of the compact would be premature because a host state for the waste site had not been chosen.
"At this point, we have no idea
what state will be selected for the site," Gordon said. "I think we've got time to work on this."
But State Sen. Paul Fleeciano Jr., D-Wichita, said Kansas probably would become the host state and would have little control over it.
"My intent is to continue this fight," Feleciano said after the meeting. "I think we're making a mistake."
The rejection of the amendment means that the withdrawal will not be considered again until next session. The bill was one of three the committee considered that dealt with the impact membership. The four other states in the compact are Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
Raymond Peery of Atlanta, executive director of the compact, said recently that Kansas was the only state in the compact actively considering withdrawal. However, the Kansas City Star recently reported that Nebraska had considered withdrawing and that a senator in Arkansas had introduced into his legislature a proposal to withdraw.
Attorney General Bob Stephan told a legislative committee on March 18 that Kansas could and should enact a ban on below-ground storage of low-level radioactive waste. But he said the cost of withdrawing from the compact would be more than remaining in it and banning waste burial.
Peery said Kansas could face sanctions, including expulsion from the compact, if the state unreasonably limited waste storage
wetlands. velphops.
The state's entrances to the compact resulted from a 1980 federal law requiring states to open or provide for their own waste sites by 1986. Kansas and the four other states formed the compact in 1982.
States not building their own sites
must enter into compacts. Compact members receive waste only from other compact members, but states not in compacts must accept waste from all other states.
The law requires a compact to choose its site by Jan. 1, 1988. The site must be in operation by 1993.
"If Kansas should construct its own facility, the state could not prevent the disposal of all waste reported out of the state." Stephan said.
Last month, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Kansas told the Senate committee that the waste burial site should be in Coffey County, which houses the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant.
"Coffey County is the county that is benefiting most from the nuclear energy," said Shaun McGrath, the lobbyist. "If we store Kansas wastes there, we can mothball the wastes when they close down the plant."
McGarth's statement came after more than 3,000 people, some holding signs that said "Hell no, we won't glow," gathered in the Beloit Junior-Senior High School on March 18 to protest the waste burial.
Their main concern was a report released by Dames & Moore, the consulting firm hired to prepare a site suitability study for the five-state compact. The report listed 147 suitable sites, 109 of which are in Kansas. Several of them were near Beloit, in Mitchell County.
The March-April issue of the Kansas Sierran reported that Dames & Moore had "ruled out all of Oklahoma, left two square miles in Louisiana (one county), two counties with possible sites in Arkansas, 10 counties in Nebraska and 18 in Kansas."
Frank Wilson, senior geologist at the Kansas Geological Survey on West Campus, said some of the sites in northeast Kansas were glacial
areas and should not be considered.
illus and should not be considered. In a letter written June 14, 1985, to Barbara Sobol, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Wilson questioned what he called "the broad generalizations" used by Dames & Moore to select the sites.
He wrote, "Because Kansas and Nebraska have more detailed and more readily available maps, those were easier to use."
If Kansas withdraws from the Central Interstate Compact, it would have to enter into another compact or build its own waste site and accept waste from other states. One idea, suggested by McGarth, is to form a compact with North Dakota, which withdrew from a compact with South Dakota because the southern state wanted to require that the waste site be in North Dakota.
The Associated Press supplied some information for this story.
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