OPINION: Is Idaho getting ready to buy a nuclear waste pig in a poke?

Back in the early 1990s, Idaho’s former Attorney General and Lt. Governor, Dave Leroy, was a very lonely nuclear waste salesman. During his three years (1990-93) as United States Nuclear Waste Negotiator, he wandered the country and beyond, trying to find some state, tribal or territorial government willing to become the nation’s nuclear waste repository. He was treated as a pariah. The New York Times reported Leroy as saying that all the people with whom he needs to negotiate will not be caught dead talking to him. My, how times have changed. Now, five states, including Idaho, are begging to be one of three repositories of high-level nuclear waste in exchange for undefined and unfunded future benefits.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the country has more than 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and about 90 million gallons of radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear weapons program. That makes it easy to calculate Idaho’s one-third share of the nuclear waste pie. There is no indication of the benefits to be bestowed on the three states and absolutely no money available in the federal till to pay for them. It’s all a matter of faith — just commit up front to take the waste and the feds will tell you the payoff sometime down the road.

The proposal to make Idaho a “Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus” was apparently initiated with Gov. Brad Little’s issuance of Executive Order 2025-06, which established the Idaho Advanced Nuclear Energy Task Force last September. The Task Force includes about 20 Idaho luminaries — the lieutenant governor, attorney general, director of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and a variety of others. They worked together to formulate a proposal to the DOE. Idaho was picked as one of the five finalist states. They all signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with DOE to negotiate a Host Agreement “for the acceptance of out-of-state used nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, and high-level radioactive waste.” The word “temporary” appears nowhere in the MOU.

If Idaho is selected as one of three repositories, we will start receiving nuclear waste from around the country and will undoubtedly start searching for another location dumb enough to act as a permanent dumping ground. Let’s be honest, it will even be a tougher job than that which confronted Dave Leroy those many years ago. The fact is that no other state or tribal government will take any finalist’s third of the waste. All three will become the de facto final repositories for existing waste, as well as the 2,000 metric tons per year that DOE expects to be generated in the future.

That being the case, Idahoans should ask some searching questions and get some firm commitments from the federal government before blundering into a Host Agreement that will be legally binding upon the state. Where and how will the waste be stored? What will be its effect on the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer? What safeguards will be imposed by the federal government? Exactly what projects will Idaho receive at the INL in exchange for being a permanent repository, and how will funding be guaranteed?

These are just a few of the questions that must be answered before Idaho buys into this nuclear waste pig in a poke.

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Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as Justice of the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He also publishes at substack.com/@jjcommontater.