O’Leary plans to keep alive Yucca Mountain waste site

Thursday, Feb. 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Saying there's an urgent need to dispose of tons of surplus plutonium and uranium, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary has reiterated support for a high-level waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

The Department of Energy is trying to build a civilian radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but has run into numerous scientific and political obstacles.

As a result, many utilities have had to invest in silos or canisters for above-ground, on-site storage. Now, the Energy Department may end up doing the same.

The issue arose Wednesday when O'Leary laid out a plan for managing the government's nuclear weapons stockpiles in the coming decades.

O'Leary proposed "a nuclear weapons complex in the 21st century that is cheaper, safer and 80 percent smaller." She emphasized, however, that although the United States may have promised not to build any more nuclear weapons, it needs to retain the knowledge of how to do so and to assure that existing bombs will function as they grow older.

The department held off deciding how to dispose of surplus plutonium and bomb-grade uranium. But it said it had narrowed the options to three.

O'Leary's recommendations, in a "draft programmatic environmental impact statement," include reducing the number of major industrial complexes to four from seven, cutting about 3,600 jobs and lowering annual operating expenses to about $1 billion, down from $1.5 billion now and $2.5 billion four years ago.

But not all recommendations require cuts. The government would invest $500 million in equipment to make components of nuclear weapons and to replace parts that age or are destroyed in the testing process.

Under the plan, the Nevada Test Site could be used in several ways in the management of the nuclear weapons stockpile.