AUGUSTA — The state’s search for a low-level radioactive waste dump site cost more than $1.6 million in consultants’ and lawyers’ fees during the past fiscal year.

Invoices at Maine Low-Level Radioactive Waste Authority headquarters show that $1.5 million of the total was charged by consultants for doing geological and technical research and running meetings to get public views on the search. Legal fees amounted to $120,000.

The bills also showed that lawyers and consultants charged as much as $170 an hour for their work.

During fiscal 1990, which ended June 30, the authority paid $787,564 to the E.C. Jordan Co. of Portland, which assisted with geological and scientific work. During a 14-month period, the company’s bill totaled more than $1 million.

A contract with another firm, Endispute Inc., specifies that the Cambridge, Mass., firm be paid $111,300 during an 18-month period to run monthly Citizens’ Advisory Group meetings in Bangor.

The group, representing a wide range of interests from utilities to anti-nuclear groups, agrees by consensus on issues related to construction of a disposal facility.

Authority board members have asked Executive Director John Williams to find ways to reduce the current fiscal year’s budget.

Fees are paid from an authority fund that comes from assessments charged to the primary generator of low-level waste in the state, the Maine Yankee atomic power plant in Wiscasset. Maine Yankee’s owners in turn charge electric ratepayers.

Maine must meet a 1993 federal deadline to have a dump site for the state’s low-level wastes or face prospects of having no place to dispose of those materials. Low-level waste includes materials contaminated by radiation at atomic power stations, hospitals and research facilities. It does not include spent fuel or defense wastes.