State protests water applications for Yucca Mountain

Friday, Jan. 2, 1998 | 11:29 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Agency for Nuclear Projects has protested the applications of the U.S. Department of Energy to permanently use 430 acrefeet of water at the proposed high level nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada.

The federal agency received temporary state permits to draw the water from the Fortymile Canyon-Jackass Flat basin in Nye County for use in the study of the nuclear repository. But these rights expire in the year 2002. The energy department has asked the state Division of Water Resources to make them permanent.

Bob Loux of the nuclear projects agency says the state Legislature is on record as opposing the burial of high level nuclear waste in Nevada.

"The proposed use for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain will be detrimental to Nevada's socioeconomic interests and will adversely impact the environment," Loux said in the protest.

He said there are other applications more senior to those of the government. And the federal application "conflicts with existing water rights, particularly those owned by the state of Nevada for the purposes of mitigating adverse impacts to threatened and endangered species in the Ash Meadows area."

The protest said that drawing this much water will lower the groundwater level and may increase the movement of nuclear contamination off the Nevada Test Site, threatening the springs in the area.

Loux added that this water, once used, would be polluted. He said there needs to be a comprehensive water plan before these permits are issued.

Friday, the division of water set Feb. 18 (10 a.m.) for a pre-hearing conference on the applications. It will be in the Las Vegas City Council Chambers (400 East Stewart Avenue).

The pre-hearing conference is to simplify the issues; exchange exhibits and prepared testimony and to reveal the list of witnesses to be called at a later hearing.