TWIN FALLS -- Issues of water and waste weighed heavily on the minds of Magic Valley residents as they gathered at a Department of Energy meeting Wednesday night.

"Everybody is interested in the radioactive waste," said Tim Frazier, a DOE spokesman. "We are as well."

Last November, the DOE proposed a plan to consolidate the production of radioisotope power systems at the Idaho National Laboratory near Arco. At Wednesday's meeting, Frazier and other DOE officials laid out the details of the proposal.

However, it was the details that some nuclear opponents said the presentation lacked.

Ester Ceja of the Snake River Alliance labeled DOE's Draft Environmental Impact Statement as a "cut-and-paste" document.

"It just doesn't give us any detail as to what the real impacts are," she said. "DOE has a bad track record. You have lied to us before."

Currently, DOE manufactures the power systems through a combination of steps at three sites: INL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. DOE already uses INL's Advanced Test Reactor when making the power systems. The Energy Department has provided plutonium-238-based power systems for NASA and national security missions for over 35 years.

If plutonium-238 production is consolidated at INL, the operations will generate about 20 cubic meters of transuranic waste annually, Frazier said. Operations at INL currently produce about 10 cubic meters of transuranic waste per year. And, INL houses roughly 62,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste as part of its Cold War legacy.

The DOE believes that the national security mission will make the waste eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, Frazier said.

The amount of waste potentially generated by consolidation doesn't trouble John Kotek, department manager of DOE in Idaho Falls. Kotek says the new waste won't hinder current cleanup plans.

"We shipped more than 100 cubic meters down to WIPP last week," Kotek said "Yeah, there's a big cleanup job out there. But we're getting it done."

Kathleen Trever, the state of Idaho's coordinator for INL oversight, monitors the DOE's progress toward its cleanup agreement with the state of Idaho.

"The INL has a cleanup mission today because during the Cold War the federal government was less accountable for how it managed waste and other environmental impacts," Trever said. "That lack of accountability resulted in environmental problems and public mistrust."

Local podiatrist and nuclear opponent Peter Rickards suggested that the Energy Department's plan for waste disposal isn't what it seems. Rickards says that the department may intend to bury the waste onsite, instead of shipping it to WIPP as DOE officials propose.

"Let's do it the Bush way," Rickards said. "Let's do it cheap."

Another environmental problem that consolidation may bring to Idaho is its use of water. Power system production already uses 27.5 million liters of water at the INL site per year. Consolidating operations would raise that to 74.4 million liters of water annually, according to the department's summary.

That extra use concerns JoEtta Abo, of Paul, who said she waited six weeks to have her well deepened.

"Thank you for using our share of water to produce something that could kill us all," Abo said.

Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3237 or by e-mail at mdunlop@magicvalley.com.

You can still comment on DOE's plutonium consolidation plan. Here's how: * Aug. 29 marks the end of the public comment period. * Read the draft consolidation environmental impact statement on the Internet at http://consolidationeis.doe.gov. * Contact Timothy Frazier, document manager, at (800) 919-3706 for more information or requests for copies of the plan. * Mail written comments to Timothy Frazier, document manager, U.S. Department of Energy, NE-50/GTN Building Office, Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20585-1290. * Fax comments to (800) 919-3765. * E-mail comments to Frazier at ConsolidationEIS@nuclear.energy.gov.