Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipment to Idaho Lab Remains in Limbo

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — The director of the Idaho National Laboratory says it's problematic whether a small quantity of spent nuclear fuel needed for research will be allowed into Idaho this spring.

Mark Peters tells the Post Register that the lab renegotiated a research agreement to allow the shipment to be received this spring. However, the continued failure of a treatment facility to process 900,000 gallons of high-level nuclear waste stored at the 890-square-mile Energy Department site in eastern Idaho has caused the federal agency to violate a 1995 agreement with Idaho.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden as a result is refusing to allow research quantities of spent nuclear fuel into Idaho. One research shipment has already been sent elsewhere, and Peters says the lab could potentially lose the next shipment as well.