LINCOLN, NEB. ? The day after a judge said Nebraska must pay $151 million for blocking construction of a waste dump for low-level radioactive waste, the state filed notice it would appeal the ruling.

And Brad Reynolds, Nebraska’s lead attorney on the case, could hardly contain himself Tuesday in talking about what he called a litany of errors in Monday’s ruling.

“There are a number of errors that were made,” Reynolds said of the planned appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “There are some pretty serious legal issues that the ruling presents.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf ruled Monday that former Gov. Ben Nelson, now a U.S. senator, engaged in a politically motivated and orchestrated plot to keep the dump from being built in Nebraska.

Kopf said Nelson’s office “directly interfered with the regulatory process.”

“Frankly, I cannot conceive of a stronger case of bad faith in the performance of a contract,” Kopf said.

The dump was to contain waste from Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma which joined in 1983 to form the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.

Nebraska officials argued they refused to license the dump because of concerns about possible pollution and a high-water table at the proposed site in Boyd County near the South Dakota border.

Reynolds said he was particularly concerned by Kopf’s refusal to let a jury hear the case.

Kopf refused to seat a jury for the case partly because its members would be made up of taxpayers who ultimately would have to pay the bill if Nebraska lost the case.

Kopf said the law did not allow jury trials in disputes between states.

But in his ruling, Kopf characterized the lawsuit as a contractual dispute.

“And that is precisely the kind of action that the law says is entitled to be tried to a jury,” Reynolds said. “That … raises a very serious legal issue.”

Reynolds said it could take more than two years to resolve the issue if the case eventually reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, as many people expect.

Utilities that generate radioactive waste filed the lawsuit, accusing Nebraska officials of acting in bad faith by not licensing the facility in 1998. Other states in the waste compact later joined the lawsuit.