Environment: Judge says that U.S. doesn't need to turn over 1,000 acres
for the desert facility, which has been the subject of a 10-year battle.

        A federal judge in Washington has dealt an apparently lethal blow to the bitterly contested, 10-year-old plan to build a dump for radioactive waste in Ward Valley in the eastern Mojave Desert barely 20 miles from the Colorado River.
        "I think [the] Ward Valley [dump] is dead," said Joe Nagel,
president of U.S. Ecology, the company that was going to build
and operate the dump. "This was really the basic case that was
going to decide whether or not there was going to be a Ward
Valley [dump]."
       U.S District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Wednesday that
the Clinton administration does not have to turn over the
1,000-acre parcel of federal land near Needles where the state
had hoped to bury about 10,000 cubic feet of radioactive waste a
year. The waste would have come from nuclear power plants,
laboratories and hospitals. U.S. Ecology and former Gov. Pete
Wilson had filed the suit because of the Clinton administration's
refusal to turn over the site over a six-year period.
Nagel said that U.S. Ecology would not appeal this week's
ruling. "The important issue for California, along with other
states, is to see to it that the waste produced is then taken care
of," Nagel added.
        The judge's decision would appear to bring down the
curtain on one of the longest and most acrimonious
environmental battles in recent state history.

The fight pitted the Wilson administration and California's
utility industry against a coalition of conservationists,
anti-nuclear activists and Needles-area Indian tribes. Opponents
cited concerns such as the possible contamination of the
Colorado River, which provides drinking water for millions of
people, and the effects on Native American sacred sites in the
desert and fragile creatures such as the California desert
tortoise.
        "Future generations will rejoice at this decision to put an
end to such a misguided project," said Dan Hirsch, who heads the
anti-nuclear organization Bridge the Gap and who guided the
campaign against the Ward Valley dump.

But the ruling does not exempt California from its duty
under federal law to find a place to dispose of its nuclear refuse.
For the time being, much of California's waste is being shipped
to disposal facilities in Utah and South Carolina, while some
waste is being stored by the firms and institutions that produce
it.

On the drawing board for a decade, the dump has been the
subject of endless political and scientific debate, with
environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists arguing that Ward
Valley's porous, shifting sands would not be a safe place to put
deadly waste, some of which would remain highly toxic for at
least 25,000 years.

The ultimate nightmare--poisonous particles making their
way through underground fissures to the Colorado--struck most
scientists as highly unlikely but not impossible. A greater
possibility was the migration of water-borne radionuclides from
the dump's unlined trenches into an aquifer several hundred feet
below the desert floor. That ground water is a potential source
of drinking water.

Over the last few years, there was mounting evidence
from the site of another desert dump in nearby Beatty, Nev., that
radioactive tritium waste did not stay put.

Responsive to those concerns, the Clinton administration
repeatedly called for more tests and resisted transferring the
site to the state.

Exasperated by the delays, former Gov. Wilson and U.S.
Ecology, a subsidiary of American Ecology, which has operated
several other nuclear waste disposal facilities around the
country, sued the U.S. Interior Department to compel transfer of
the federal land for the facility.

The suit contended that the federal government was
obligated to honor a decision to transfer the land made by
Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan during the last days of the Bush
administration.

But Judge Sullivan agreed with the Clinton administration
that an earlier federal court ruling barred the transfer by Lujan.
That ruling by U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel in San Francisco
in effect blocked the transfer until the federal government
determined the impact of the dump on the desert tortoise, which
is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

A spokesman for the Department of the Interior said
Friday that Sullivan's ruling frees federal and state officials to
pursue alternatives to the Ward Valley dump.

Three weeks ago, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wrote
Gov. Gray Davis calling for all interested parties to "explore
alternatives to the proposed [Ward Valley] land transfer."
Davis had not responded as of Friday, according to the
Interior spokesman. However, Davis has long been skeptical of
the Ward Valley site and, as lieutenant governor, opposed the
Bush administration's efforts to transfer the land.
Through a spokesman, Davis declined to comment Friday.
<<END EXCERPT

     Friday's ruling in Washington, D.C., by U.S. District Judge Emmet
     G. Sullivan only addressed Babbitt's reversal of an 11th-hour
     order by his predecessor, but both the company that was developing
     the dump and opponents said the plan was finished.

     ``There's no one left in the state as a political figure that is
     pushing this dump, and their only hope was that a court would
     force that land to be transferred,'' said Daniel Hirsch, president
     of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a defendant with Babbitt in the
     lawsuit......end excerpt

Federal Court Gives Ward Valley Opponents Huge Victory
Wilson-US Ecology Lawsuit to Force Transfer of Land, Open Nuclear Dump is Thrown Out

Proponents of the controversial Ward Valley, California, radioactive
waste dump lost their lawsuit attempting to force the dump’s opening, it was revealed today.  The lawsuit, brought by then-California Governor Pete Wilson and US Ecology, the company that wanted to operate the nuclear dump 18 miles from the Colorado River, had asked that the federal government be ordered to transfer federal land for use as a radioactive waste disposal facility.  U.S. District Court Emmet Sullivan, in a ruling dated Wednesday but received by the parties today, ruled against the dump proponents and in favor of the U.S. Interior Department and environmentalists who had joined the case, including Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap and the Bay Area Nuclear Waste Coalition.

“This is extraordinary good news for the countless future generations
who would be at risk if this dangerous nuclear project had gone forward,” said Daniel Hirsch, President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, that has fought the project for a decade.  “The litigation was the last major hope of proponents of this misguided project.”

Ward Valley was proposed to take radioactive waste, almost all from
nuclear reactors, and dump it in unlined trenches.  Very long-lived wastes like plutonium, strontium, and cesium would have been dumped there.  The proposed operator had a troubled track record, with many of its past dumps having leaked and been closed; one is a Superfund site. Concern that the nearby Colorado River, source of water for much of the Southwestern United States,  could be contaminated contributed to the widespread public opposition to the project.

Waste volumes have dropped 10-fold in recent years,  while existing
facilities elsewhere in the country take California’s waste and charge a
small fraction of what Ward Valley would have charged, raising serious
questions about the economic viability of the project in addition to the
environmental concerns.  A number of radioactive waste generators have
recently been distancing themselves from the project, noting they would
prefer to keep shipping to the existing cheaper national dumps rather than forced to ship to the far more expensive Ward Valley site if built.  The proposed facility was also heavily opposed by Native American tribes who consider the area sacred tribal land.

“This should be the deathknell for Ward Valley,” said Hirsch.

COMMITTEE TO BRIDGE THE GAP
1637 BUTLER AVENUE, SUITE 203
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA  90025
(310) 478-0829

Contact: Nora Helton, Ft. Mojave Indian Tribe 760/629-4591
               David Harper, C.R.I.T. spokesperson 520/669-9211
               Molly Johnson, Save Ward Valley      760/326-6267

COLORADO RIVER NATIVE NATIONS ALLIANCE & WARD VALLEY COALITION CELEBRATE VICTORY IN COURT CASE AGAINST NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP AND SURRENDER BY US ECOLOGY

CALL UPON GOV DAVIS TO PUT FINAL NAIL IN COFFIN

Needles, CA -The Colorado River Native Nations Alliance (CRNNA) and Ward Valley Coalition celebrates yesterday's decision by the US District Court refusing to force a transfer of land to the state of California for a nuclear waste dump and US Ecology's announcement that they will not appeal the decision and, in fact, deem the project over.

In the wake of these announcements, the CRNNA and Ward Valley Coalition are calling upon Governor Gray Davis to act immediately to put a final end to this ill-fated project by withdrawing the state's application for the land at Ward Valley.

"This is a big victory for the Tribes and for all of the people who have
worked so hard and for so many years to stop this project." said Nora
Helton, chairwoman of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe.  "It is now imperative that Governor Gray Davis do what he's promised to do, to live up to his words and withdraw the State's application for the land at Ward Valley.  It is in his hands now to end this project once and for all!"

Although the court decision and US Ecology's announcement are potentially fatal blows to the project, until the land application is withdrawn Ward Valley will not be safe from a nuclear waste site. The CRNNA and Ward Valley Coalition oppose the placement of any type of nuclear waste facility at Ward Valley and call upon Governor Davis to ensure no such facility will ever be built.

"As part of the CRNNA, the Colorado River Indian Tribes urge Governor Davis to withdraw the land application and put a stop to the dump forever!", said Dave Harper, spokesperson for the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

The Colorado River Native Nations Alliance, consisting of the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Quechan, and Colorado River Indian Tribes, have long opposed the siting of any type of radioactive waste facility on land they hold sacred.   Together with environmentalists and activists from all over the world they have maintained a constant presence on the land at Ward Valley for 3½ years and last year occupied the land for 113 days successfully halting further desecration of the sacred valley.

"Hand in hand, Native and non-Native people from all over the world have worked to win this important battle.  This victory proves to us all that truth and justice do have a chance in this world today when the people work together." said Molly Johnson, office coordinator of the Save Ward Valley office in Needles, CA. "We ask Governor Davis to heed the word of the people, withdraw the land application and finally lay this project to rest."