Amargosa farmers get their say

Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 11:01 a.m.

AMARGOSA VALLEY -- Scientists searching for answers to how fast ground water travels from Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site to Amargosa Valley spent Wednesday on the farms and at warm water springs serving this community of 5,000 people.

As the gateway to Death Valley located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley has become the focus of intense ground water studies for two reasons.

The first is a possible high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The second is the cleanup of the Nevada Test Site, once the nation's proving grounds for nearly 1,000 above and below ground nuclear weapons experiments.

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a group of independent scientists formed to study the Department of Energy's work at Yucca Mountain, tramped through mud and salty soils and listened to the concerns of local farmers.

"The board is convinced that water and how it goes through Yucca Mountain is the critical issue," board spokesman Frank Randall said during the tour.

Amargosa Valley farmers such as Michael DeLee have wondered when someone would pay attention to their concerns about the ground water running just below the surface of their pistachio nut trees, garlic fields and Nevada's largest dairy, Ponderosa Farms.

DeLee led the group on a visit to local farms, explaining that more studies of the area need to be complete before anyone can use more ground water.

And residents need to know if the ground water has been contaminated, DeLee said.

Ten new members appointed to the board by President Clinton argued, discussed and fired questions at scientists who have ideas on how climate and water may change in the future, but there were no firm answers.

Both independent and DOE scientists agree water will rise inside Yucca Mountain at some point. But will it go the 360 feet estimated by the DOE or 700 feet or higher? No one had any answers Wednesday.

Climate change plays a major role in how wet or dry the area will become if nuclear waste is entombed in Yucca Mountain, said the scientists.

Rick Forrester of the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver said predictions on how soon the Southwest may be drenched run from a couple hundred years to several thousand years.

"The world we live in today is unusual," said Forrester, who explained it is warmer and drier than normal. "The next stage should be a glacial period."

That would mean more water at Yucca Mountain and in Amargosa Valley, where the desert has turned into a lake in the past.

Large jumps in the water table, now more than 1,000 feet beneath Yucca Mountain, could dramatically change the environment where 77,000 tons of highly radioactive fuel rods could be entombed.

Another question puzzling scientists centers on where area ground water originates. Some of it flows from the Spring Mountains, west of Las Vegas. Then there is water from volcanic mountains and a third flow southbound beneath the Test Site.

The DOE maintains that each of these flows remains separate.

But Nevada officials discovered that the DOE admitted the waters mixed together at some point in an environmental report prepared for cleaning up the Nevada Test Site.