Restore West Valley funding
Schumer faces a budget challenge in bid to combat cuts to nuclear waste project
Updated: 07/15/08 6:37 AM
Sen. Charles E. Schumer deserves all of the local political support he can get for his push to restore funding cuts that will impact continuing cleanup work at the West Valley Demonstration Site, this area’s primary radioactive waste problem spot. Longtime West Valley project champion Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds is retiring from the House of Representatives this year, and Schumer’s continued shouldering of that burden on the Senate side is welcome.
Federal funding for the Cattaraugus County nuclear waste site has been cut nearly in half over the past three years, and the Bush administration’s proposed cut to $57 million this year was backed by the House despite efforts by Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr., R-Hammondsport. The full Senate Appropriations Committee, though, now has approved $72.9 million in federal funding and the bill will be sent to the Senate floor. If it passes there, the funding bill goes to a joint House-Senate conference committee to settle the final number.
Without the Senate increase, 50 jobs are threatened and work for the coming year will be slowed — just as a core task force is making progress on a plan for still-unfunded state and federal cleanup work that could ensure needed progress despite differences between the state and federal governments over site responsibility.
Any roadblock to progress stemming from funding cutbacks is unacceptable. West Valley still has highly contaminated radioactive waste on site, contaminated buildings that have to be removed and a dangerous Strontium-90 groundwater plume that needs to be contained after the source of the contamination is removed.
Current budget levels have fallen $23 million short of the necessary funding to keep the West Valley Demonstration Project on track, making Schumer’s effort to get $80 million in federal funds for the project all the more vital.
Schumer has acted appropriately in picking up the baton on this issue. In a statement, he noted that the Senate was able to restore administration cuts last year and plans to do the same again this year. It’s important that it does.
The 28-year cleanup effort at West Valley hasn’t come close to finishing the $2.2 billion job.
New York State, which has its own cleanup and containment operations at the site, has spent nearly $242 million and the project last year marked a milestone by shipping thousands of containers of cemented low-level radioactive waste off site. But the federal Department of Energy has no options yet for off-site transfer of the high-level radioactive waste it has solidified into glass logs, and radioactive process buildings from the original federally encouraged nuclear fuels reprocessing project remain.
That effort will take state-federal agreements, expertise and development of new technologies, time — and money.
The money part is the job of Congress and the White House. Schumer, who helped secure restoration of $78.8 million in federal funding last year, remains on the right path — even if the vitally important cleanup project just off Route 219 risks going off track for lack of federal resources and commitment.
