Nuclear Laundry Sues City of Santa Fe for Second Time
December 2, l998
Interstate Nuclear Services (INS), the "Nuclear Laundry", filed suit
against the City of Santa Fe on October 6th, 1998, seeking to overturn the
City's new wastewater discharge ordinance which regulates the discharge of
radionuclides to the City sewer and wastewater treatment plant. Treated
effluent waters from the City's wastewater treatment plant are ultimately
discharged to the Santa Fe River, but the treatment does not remove the
nuclear contamination.
The City's newly adopted Treated Effluent
Management Plan calls for the City to make extensive use of the treated
effluent in an effort to save over $27 million dollars in water rights
purchases over the next twenty years. "The Treated Effluent Management
Plan, which was adopted by the City earlier this year, includes the option
to discharge the treated effluent into the Rio Grande in exchange for the
right to draw San Juan-Chama drinking water," stated Patricio Guerrerortiz,
Public Utilities Director for the City of Santa Fe. "I believe that public
perception of radioactive contamination of this effluent may affect our
ability to make our reuse plans work. That's one major reason why we have
the limitations set forth in the wastewater discharge ordinance. This
treated effluent use plan is essential to the City's ability to meet the
water supply needs of our citizens in the future."
The plan also calls for the City to negotiate with major water users who
use drinking water for irrigation to instead use treated effluent for
irrigation, thus saving major amounts of drinking water, and to recharge
the treated effluent to the Santa Fe River.
The Nuclear Laundry, which for thirty years has washed nuclear contaminated
uniforms from Los Alamos National Laboratories and Rocky Flats at its plant
on Siler Road in the heart of Santa Fe, claims the ordinance puts it out of
business because the requirements are too difficult to meet. INS uses
'dilution is the solution to pollution' as its method of treating
radioactive discharges, simply increasing the amount of water it uses and
discharges so the concentrations of radionuclides would meet State
standards. The City ordinance is more rigorous. "The State standards are
already too easy to meet, and using up precious water to get there is
incredibly wasteful", says Leroy Romero, former INS manager and now a board
member of CCNS.
INS has not operated in Santa Fe since May, 1996, when the City of Santa Fe
closed it down amid allegations of illegal sludge releases containing
radioactive contamination and failure to disclose tests revealing
violations of City discharge requirements. Former Nuclear Laundry
employees, including Romero, testified at a public hearing about INS orders
to violate the laws regulating radioactive discharges, including illegal
dumping of sludge into the sewer. The State nonetheless renewed the INS
license but unless INS can comply with the City ordinance, it cannot
discharge to the City sewer.
"INS could recycle its water as is done elsewhere and wouldn't have to
discharge anything. But they insist on using up our limited water to
dilute their pollution, and then dumping it into the sewer, then to the
river, then to Cochiti Lake," states Romero. The Nuclear Laundry could also
go back to Los Alamos National Laboratory, where they started out.
The INS lawsuit claims the City has no right to regulate the
discharges at all, and that the ordinance was intended to put them out of
business. It also attacks CCNS as having been the spearhead for the
ordinance and the efforts to shut down INS. In addition to its attack on
the ordinance, INS seeks money damages from the City.
"Our role is to educate the public and our City officials about violations
of the laws protecting citizens from radioactive contamination, and that's
what we did and will continue to do," states Lee Lysne, Executive Director
of CCNS. "Leroy Romero came to CCNS to get help stopping the illegalities
he perceived at INS. It's too bad the State didn't listen to him, but we
are grateful the City Council understands the issue and enacted the
ordinance and is actively defending it. It seems that INS's real goal is
to intimidate the City into settling and throwing out the ordinance. We
are proud that the City Council won't cave in to this kind of threat."
Santa Fe Passes Unprecedented Radioactive Discharge Protection For It's Sewers.
1997
Community organizing by Concerned Citizens for
Nuclear Safety and hard work by committed Santa Fe city staffers spurred
the Santa Fe city council on Wednesday, Feb. 12. 1997 to enact historic
regulation of radioactive waste discharge into the city sewer. By a
unanimous vote, the council rejected arguments from Interstate Nuclear
Services, the 'nuclear laundry', and enacted legislation sponsored by
Councilors Patti Bushee and Molly Whitted designed to protect the city's
economic interests from rad waste dumping. INS, which has been shut down
since May, 1996 because of permit violations, has for 30 years laundered
clothing contaminated with plutonium and other long lived radionuclides and
discharged its wastewater into the Santa Fe sewer system. The sewer system
discharges into the Santa Fe River, which affects many downstream users
from traditional villages to Cochiti Pueblo.
"Over 2,000 citizens and businesses supported this ordinance to
protect us from rad waste dumping in the sewer," said Lee Lysne, Executive
Director of CCNS. "It appears that we are the first municipality in the
nation to enact legislation of this type. Recent research shows that
cities may enact regulations such as these which are more stringent than
state or federal laws to protect the economic interests of the
municipalities.
INS has claimed this ordinance will shut them down. We don't
believe it, but if so, our next plan is to make sure the nuclear laundry
doesn't just move elsewhere and pollute someone else's river. We have
secured cooperation from individuals and pro nuclear groups who formerly
opposed us to make a united effort to get the nuclear laundries back
on-site at the weapons facilities and nuclear power plants which generate
the waste. INS has 14 other facilities, and their radioactive waste doesn't
belong in anyone's river. Here is a list of INS facilities in the United
States.
Interstate Nuclear Services Inc. (INS) facilities in the US:
- 700 S. Etiwanda, Ontario, California 91761
- 210 Miller Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 39180
- 2424 Robertson Drive, Richland, Washington 99352
- 3050 Ualera St. #C, Honolulu, Hawaii 96819
- 295 Parker St., Springfield, Massachusetts 00151
- 811 S. Edisto Ave, Colombia, South Carolina 29205
- 2001 Laigh Road, Portsmouth, Virginia 23701
- 3061 Houston Ave., Macon, Georgia 31206
- 1006 3rd Ave, Morris, Illinois 60450
- 401 North Third Avenue, Royerford, Pennsylvania 19468
- 1310 Siler Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505
- 820 Jimmy Dean Ave., Osceola, Iowa 50213 (closed?)
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