Judge: DOE Must Remove Nuclear Waste (Idaho Natl Lab)

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2006/may/25/052504538.html

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the U.S. Energy Department must remove all high-level radioactive waste stored at federal nuclear research compound in southeastern Idaho.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge rejected the DOE's argument that a 1995 agreement with the state only covered waste that had been stored in barrels on asphalt pads at the Idaho National Laboratory.

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The DOE said leaving the buried waste where it is may be safer than trying to exhume it, since some of the radioactive materials can spontaneously explode when exposed to oxygen.

State leaders have said they oppose abandoning the waste, since some studies have shown that buried radioactive materials are seeping toward the underground aquifer that feeds the Snake River, which runs across and almost the entire length of Idaho.

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to oxygen." Oh wonderful!!