WHAT SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT WARD VALLEY


National Academy of Sciences Ward Valley Panel

"While there are conceivable, but unlikely, flowpaths for some groundwater within Ward Valley to reach the Colorado River, conservative bounding calculations suggest that the potential impacts on the river water quality would be insignificant relative to present natural levels of radionuclides in the river and would meet accepted regulatory health standards."
— National Academy of Sciences Ward Valley Panel Report, May 11, 1995, page 149


Dr. Debra Knopman, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, Department of the Interior

"...you had 17 very qualified people who agreed on an enormous amount of information. On a very complicated issue…on which there was no dissent, that even if there was any kind of migration of material from the surface to the ground water that the impact on the Colorado River would be just insignificant. The Secretary regarded that as a very significant finding."
— On KCRW-FM Public Radio, Los Angeles, June 1, 1995


Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior

"I've never believed that being an environmentalist means saying 'no' to necessity. The National Academy of Sciences says its safe, so I'm prepared to go ahead with it."
— As quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 1995


Gordon Eaton, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey

"The review team believes that the observed tritium distribution at Beatty is probably the result of the burial of liquid wastes and the fact that some disposal trenches at Beatty were open for years until filled, allowing accumulation and infiltration of precipitation..."
"The license that the State of California has issued for the Ward Valley facility does not permit disposal of radioactive waste in liquid form and requires that only the minimum amount of open trench necessary for safe and efficient operation shall be excavated at any one time. Because of the differences in waste-burial practices at the Beatty site compared to those intended for the Ward Valley site, and the previously mentioned uncertainties about the transport mechanisms at Beatty, extrapolations of the results from Beatty to Ward Valley are too tenuous to have much scientific value..." (Emphasis added.)
— February 14, 1996 memo to Ed Hastey, State Director (California) U.S. Bureau of Land Management


Dr. George Thompson, Professor of Geophysics, Stanford University
Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences Ward Valley Committee

"From a purely scientific standpoint, none of the data reviewed by the Committee support further delay or opposition to construction of the facility provided the oversight and monitoring recommendations of the Committee are put in place."
— April 22, 1996 letter to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors


Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, Chairman,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

"In past reviews of the California Agreement State Program the NRC staff concluded that California's low-level waste regulations are compatible with those of the NRC; that California has followed NRC licensing guidelines and the standard review plan for acceptance and review of the Ward Valley application; and that the California staff, advisory committees and supporting contractual staff are well qualified and capable of conducting a highly effective and thorough review of the application."
— Address to the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum, Annapolis, Maryland. May 29, 1996.


Dr. Tina Berger Nova, President and Chief Operating Officer,
Nanogen, Inc. and Chair, Democratic Biomedical Caucus

"Ward Valley delays are creating hardships for California Universities, medical centers and biotech firms and damaging our area's sagging economy."
— Letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, July 1, 1996