Nevada sues to stop Trump administration's plan to dump plutonium northwest of Las Vegas

Sandoval follows through on threat to fight DOE plan "at every level"

James DeHaven
Reno Gazette-Journal
In this 2017 photo, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, center, accompanied by Laboratory Director Charlie McMillan, second from right, learns about capabilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Plutonium Facility from Jeff Yarbrough, right.

Nevada has sued to block Trump administration plans to ship plutonium to the state, writing in a new lawsuit that the proposal risks residents’ health and violates federal environmental law.

The suit filed Friday by Attorney General Adam Laxalt demands a full environmental review of the U.S. Department of Energy’s plan to ship a metric ton of plutonium from South Carolina to the Nevada National Security Site.

That site, located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has become ground zero for a monthslong standoff between Nevada officials and the federal agency, which is operating under a federal court order to move the radioactive bomb-making materials out of South Carolina.

Friday’s suit claims the DOE ignored at least five other potential landing spots for the plutonium in Texas, Tennessee and New Mexico.

It goes on to allege that the shipping plan will expose Nevadans to increased radiation and lead to contaminated land and groundwater.

State officials also fear that shipping the first batch of plutonium will prove a slippery slope.

“Clearly, there is no reasonably foreseeable final resting place or disposal option for these 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium,” Laxalt wrote in the complaint. “Nevada is rightly concerned that the one metric ton of plutonium, which is the subject of the (supplemental analysis), is merely the first step in a series of connected actions that will result in the transportation of the entire plutonium surplus to the (Nevada National Security Site) in Nevada.”

The agency claims it has safely shipped the toxic material between states before. Federal officials say the plutonium would only be “staged” in Nevada before moving on to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. They say shipments to Nevada would avoid heavily populated areas of Las Vegas.

Laxalt sued the agency on behalf of term-limited Gov. Brian Sandoval. The pair, like most of Nevada’s congressional delegation, have been outspoken critics of the plutonium shipping plan.

The Republican governor, whose term ends this month, vowed in a statement to continue fighting the proposal as long as he's in office.

“As I have made clear throughout my tenure as governor, Nevada will not stand for anything that could potentially harm the health, safety and/or welfare of our citizens,” Sandoval said on Tuesday. “So long as I am governor of the Silver State, Nevada will fight this issue at every level.”

Outgoing U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., decried the effort in September, calling on Energy Secretary Rick Perry to halt the “unreasonable and unnecessary” plan and order a broad environmental study of health and safety risks “before any further action is taken.”

Senator-elect Jacky Rosen, the Democrat set to replace Heller in the Senate, has also vehemently opposed the proposal.

Nevada officials have for decades stalled plans to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, located just west of the Nevada National Security Site.