Environmental coalition legal challenge against unprecedented highly radioactive liquid waste shipments coming to a head in D.C.

Political cartoon by Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News. Buffalo, NY, as well as Thousand Island, NY, are the two most likely border crossings for these shipments, although others could also be used. DOE has invoked security-related secrecy on the routing and timing of the shipments.A Canadian-U.S. environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, has been resisting unprecedented shipments of highly radioactive liquid waste, from Chalk River, Ontario, Canada to Savannah River Site, South Carolina, U.S.A., since they were first announced in spring, 2013. Last August, the coalition filed a federal lawsuit, demanding an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be conducted. Various court filings have gone back and forth since, between the coalition and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

In the latest round of legal filings, on Jan. 10, 2017, attorneys for DOE and the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a Defendants' Combined Reply in Support of their Motion to Strike and Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion to Supplement the Record and to Submit Extra-Record Documents.

On Jan. 12, 2017, Terry Lodge of Toledo and Diane Curran of Washington, D.C., the environmental coalition's legal counsel, responded, filing Plaintiffs' Reply to Defendants' Opposition to Motion to Supplement the Record and to Submit Extra-Record Documents.

On Jan. 18, 2017, at 10am Eastern, Lodge and Curran will square off against DOE/DOJ, and argue the environmental coalition's case at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, 333 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20001.

If the environmental coalition prevails in the expedited legal proceeding, the court will order DOE to carry out a long overdue Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), significantly delaying or perhaps even aborting the truck shipments. If the DOE prevails, it could start trucking highly radioactive liquid wastes by mid-February, 2017. See Beyond Nuclear's Waste Transportation website section for more information.