UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
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NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE ) |
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COUNCIL, et. al., ) |
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Plaintiffs. ) |
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v. ) |
Civil Action No. CV-97-936-SS |
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FEDERICO PENA, et. al., )
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Defendants. ) |
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______________________________) |
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AFFIDAVIT #1 OF GREGORY MELLO
IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF'S MOTION
FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
I, Gregory Mello, hereby declare as follows this 29th day of March,
1997:
1. I received my bachelor's degree from Harvey Mudd College
in 1971, where I majored in systems engineering. I received
my master's degree in regional planning, with emphasis on environmental
sciences, from Harvard University in 1975. I began work
for the New Mexico state Environmental Improvement Division (EID)
(now Department) in 1984, and in that year was assigned leadership
of hazardous waste enforcement activities at Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), among other responsibilities. I conducted
a number of site visits at LANL in 1984 and 1985, particularly
of the waste treatment, storage, and disposal areas, and initiated
enforcement actions, which led to a compliance order from the
EID. In March of 1985 I completed a review of all literature
concerning the hydrogeology of LANL's low-level radioactive waste
(low-level radwaste, or LLW) disposal area at Technical Area (TA)
54, Area G. That report included an original analysis of
the water balance at Area G and a detailed design for an investigation
and monitoring system to resolve hydrogeological uncertainties
at the site. That report was used as the basis of agency
compliance negotiations with LANL regarding these issues. In
1987 and 1988 I worked for the Department as a supervisory geohydrologist
on the remediation of hydrocarbon contamination at a large number
of sites throughout the state. In 1989 through 1992 I worked
as a consulting geohydrologist on a variety of contamination cases
in New Mexico and California, including Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory.
2. Since May 1992 I have been the Director of the Los Alamos
Study Group, a non-profit public interest group whose purpose
is to understand and educate the public regarding activities at
LANL and other nuclear weapons laboratories. In that capacity
I, together with those I have supervised, have attempted to maintain
complete files of public information regarding the Area G radioactive
waste disposal site, using numerous informal requests as well
as formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In
1993, my colleagues and I organized several joint fact-finding
meetings regarding issues surrounding the potential expansion
of Area G, which involved the participation of many tribal and
not-for-profit representatives with senior Department of Energy
(DOE) and LANL officials in Los Alamos and in Washington, D.C.
In addition to those joint meetings, I have conducted numerous
personal and telephone interviews with cognizant LANL and DOE
officials in an attempt to be as informed as possible regarding
this subject.
3. The most important of my conclusions, described more
fully below, regarding the disposal of radioactive waste at LANL
are as follows:
a. All near-surface radioactive waste disposal,
such as that practiced at LANL, involves long-term and irreparable
negative environmental impacts which cannot be foretold with accuracy
for more than a few decades. Under the most optimistic assumptions,
such disposal entails the permanent sacrifice and maintenance
of the disposal area and a suitable buffer zone.
b. TheArea G low-level radioactive waste (LLW) disposal
site, the only such site at LANL, is running out of capacity,
and all other onsite disposal options will have more deleterious
environmental impacts than the existing site.
c. It is physically possible to mitigate these impacts to
a greater or lesser degree if the amount of LLW involved is relatively
small and a much larger effort, i.e. dollars effectively applied,
per unit waste is possible. Neither of these conditions
will obtain under the DOE's preferred alternative in the Stockpile
Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
(SSM PEIS).
d. Routine production of LLW at LANL is now exceeded by
non-routine (one-time) waste sources: environmental restoration
(ER) activities, decontamination and demolition (D&D), and
facility renovations. The absolute size of these non-routine
wastes is expected to roughly triple in the late 1990s, assuming
that aggressive waste minimization practices are effective.
Without waste minimization, the increase in non-routine radwaste
volume would be much larger.
e. Providing upgrades to the buildings that would carry
out the pit production mission at LANL would account for an unknown
but large fraction of this increase. These upgrades will
generate enough low-level waste to consume much, if not most,
of the remaining capacity at Area G.
f. Once operational, pit production will create a significant
fraction of the routine low- level waste generated at LANL, and
may well be the largest such source.
g. Under the reasonable alternative of deferring pit production
indefinitely, the lifetime of Area G would be extended significantly
and, if the conditions of c. above can be created, possibly indefinitely.
4. In December 1991, DOE prepared a draft Environmental Assessment
(EA) regarding expansion of Area G (EA-90-004L). In early
1993, the Study Group obtained an internal draft of a subsequent
third revision of this EA (tentative enumeration DOE/EA-0866, revised
December 1992). This EA was never completed. On October
21, 1993, I compiled what could be documented about this issue in
summary form for distribution to the public, with recommendations
(Attachment 1). Please refer to that summary for important
background information regarding Area G, including a sketch of its
history and of its known environmental impact.
5. Shortly after Attachment 1 was written, an in-house group
at LANL ("Our Common Ground") issued a thoughtful report (Attachment
2) with recommendations that harmonized with mine. Among the
observations in that report was the estimate that, without improved
waste minimization and disposal practices, the disposal capacity
within the existing Area G would be exhausted in 18 months to 5
years from the date of the report, i.e. in the 1995 to 1998 time
frame (pages 7 and 13), the exact date depending primarily upon
the unpredictable generation of non-routine waste.
6. In fact, waste minimization activities were increased subsequent
to the high public visibility which Area G enjoyed in 1993. Disposal
densities achieved at Area G were increased as well. New pits
were made much deeper. A supercompactor was acquired and is
now used for some waste. Some kinds of non-LLW waste formerly
disposed at Area G are now disposed off-site. As a result
of these improved practices, the lifetime of Area G has been very
significantly extended.
7. Any expansion of Area G would destroy several ancient Pueblo
Indian ("Anasazi") archeological sites, the exact number depending
on the scope of the expansion. In 1991, the next 37 acres
of proposed expansion area were found to contain eight such sites,
all eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic
Places under Criterion "d" because of their potential contribution
to "understanding of community structure, land use, subsistence
change, and aggregation during...A.D. 1200-1300" (Attachment 3,
p. 13; see also Figure 5, a map showing nine ruins, in Attachment
2). These sites collectively include dozens of rooms and as
well as two or possibly more rock-cut kivas (underground ceremonial
structures). Expansion of the radioactive waste disposal area
would destroy these ruins; the mitigation proposed by LANL was (and
still is) complete destructive excavation of the ruins, which would
in effect convert the actual ruins to archeological reports (Ibid,
same page). This destruction is called impact "mitigation"
by LANL in its reports and "evaluation" by the DOE in its SSM PEIS
(p. 4-291): "The seven eligible properties will be adversely
affected by the proposed project. A determination of "No Adverse
Effect" contingent upon mitigation through site excavation is requested
of the State Historic Preservation Officer" (Attachment 3, abstract).
The entire Area G vicinity is densely covered with Native
American ancestral sites, and the disposal site is just one mile
from Tshirege, the largest Anasazi pueblo ruin in the entire region.
Area G directly abuts a congressionally-protected Sacred Area
of San Ildefonso Pueblo. In the past, nearby land, similar
to and in no way more scenic or culturally significant than that
which surrounds Area G, has been ceded from LANL to Bandelier National
Monument, which abuts LANL on the south and east, by virtue of its
outstanding scenic, archeological, and cultural value.
8. The remaining constructed capacity of Area G is approximately
24,000 cubic meters. (One cubic meter equals 1.308 cubic yards.)
The DOE and LANL have limited options for increasing the constructed
capacity at Area G without expansion of the site's footprint on
Mesita del Buey or elsewhere. These options involve the utilization
of land heretofore rejected for waste disposal within Area G because
it is less geomorphically stable, closer to cliff edges and the
Area G boundary, or otherwise less suitable. The most practical
of the options being considered are a) loosening current disposal
standards to allow the construction of new pits closer than 50 feet
to the edge of the mesa and b) constructing a dam in the shallow
canyon that drains southward from the eastern portion of Area G
and filling this canyon with radioactive waste. Both of these
options are more expensive than current disposal practices.
If these options are rejected, DOE will be forced either to ship
LLW off-site long distances through populated areas at great expense,
or expand Area G to the west (the simplest, cheapest, and DOE's
preferred solution). The exercise of any of these options
will increase the environmental impacts of low-level radioactive
waste management at LANL over their current level. All other
factors being equal, the degree of increased impact will depend
on the choice of new disposal option(s), the rapidity with which
those options must be implemented, and the subsequent rate of waste
generation and disposal. (If waste streams can be greatly
decreased further options exist--see paragraph 22 below--but these
options are not physically or economically realistic under current
mission assumptions.)
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