Tri-Valley CAREs
Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
As you may remember, we filed a Petition for Review the California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s (DTSC) decision to issue a Hazardous Waste Permit to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Main Site back in April 2016. Click here to see our Petition for Review. It was based on our comment during the public comment period and on other comments made.
We learned in December that the DTSC granted our Petition on several grounds. (As far as we can tell our petition is the only public stake holder Petition for Review to be granted in at least a year.) The areas which were granted review include: (1) that the permit application is inadequate because it does not provide information required by regulation, lacks detail and does not provide implementing procedures or descriptions; (2) that DTSC has not followed its policy concerning authorizing delayed closure for hazardous waste management units and has not demonstrated certain units were closed in accordance with approved plans; and (3) that changes to the permit in reposes to comments were not appropriately evaluated or provided public review.
Next is a formal appeal process with written argument, which Tri-Valley CAREs recently submitted (click here). The DTSC permitting decision may submit briefs responding to Tri-Valley CAREs brief by April 3, 2017. Following that, an administrative decision will be released that could require LLNL and DTSC to take steps that we hope will greatly improve the quality of the permit in the interest of protecting public health.