A new Yucca Mountain in New Mexico?

By Lisa Mascaro

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | 12:27 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Is a salt formation in New Mexico the new Yucca Mountain?

A trade industry publication reports today that discussions are underway to promote an existing facility in New Mexico as an alternative to storing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in the desert north of Las Vegas.

The Obama administration has promised to "scale back" funds for the Yucca Mountain project, and the president has vowed it will not open as a waste dump. A report last week indicated the fiscal 2010 funding cut would be severe.

The existing Waste Isolation Pilot Project, which handles lower-level waste in salt formation in New Mexico, has been mentioned as a possible replacement.

“Nuclear industry officials and policymakers are quietly mounting support for constructing a permanent nuclear waste repository inside a large New Mexico salt formation already used for permanent storage of low-level transuranic waste,” Energy Washington Week reports.

The publication reports former Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a longtime leader in nuclear issues, recently mentioned the idea.

Washington’s supporters of Yucca Mountain seem unwilling to let the Yucca Mountain project die even as some press for alternatives.

Today, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called Obama’s position on Yucca Mountain “irresponsible.”

Murkowski dismissed the call by Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a Blue Ribbon Commission to consider alternatives.

“I really haven’t focused on the commission as the answer,” Murkowski said this afternoon. “I think that pretty much negates all the work that’s gone on with what we do with nuclear waste for the past 20 years.”

Murkowski said she plans to address nuclear issues in the upcoming committee debate over a broad energy bill. Already, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate, indicated he expects to address issues about Yucca Mountain’s future during the committee debate.

Would the New Mexico facility be an option?

“It may be,” Murkowski said.

“The statements coming out of the admission that Yucca is no longer an option I find quite disconcerting and quite honestly irresponsible,” she said.

Transporting the nation’s civilian nuclear waste to WIPP has its own legislative obstacles. Current law now restricts what can be dumped there and would need to be altered.