Panel: EPA radiation limits for Yucca are too strict

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1999 | 9:57 a.m.

A scientific panel charged by Congress to guide the proposed radiation limits for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain says the Environmental Protection Agency is being unnecessarily strict in its limits on radiation that would be allowed to escape through ground water.

The criticism by the National Research Council's Board on Radioactive Waste Management would appear to bolster the nuclear industry's argument against an EPA standard that would limit to 2 1/2 chest X-rays the amount of radiation an average person outside the repository could be exposed to.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the industry, did not comment specifically on the report, but said Tuesday that EPA's ground water limit is unnecessary and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would license any repository, can protect public health and safety.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site in the nation under study as a high-level nuclear waste repository. Department of Energy and independent scientists are still studying the site to determine whether it is scientifically safe to accept 77,000 tons of highly radioactive wastes from commercial reactors and U.S. weapons development.

The EPA's proposed limit restricts the amount of radiation that could escape through the ground water to 4 millirems, a number the Department of Energy, which would build the repository, said it could not meet at Yucca Mountain.

That has been the limit of radiation allowed by the Safe Drinking Water Act for the past 25 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, has proposed a total limit of the equivalent of 3 1/2 chest X-rays with no specific limit on the amount of radiation that can escape through the ground water.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., who said he was briefed on the report, said he believes the National Research Council's position supports the EPA's overall standard, but the group's stance on ground water could be a problem. "They did raise the question of a separate ground water standard and that concerns us," Bryan said.

The National Research Council's report said that there is little difference between the limits proposed by the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and said that the EPA instead should find a way to measure the risk of getting cancer or other diseases for residents living near Yucca Mountain if a repository is built.

The National Research Council's findings were among 18 pages of comments on the EPA's proposed radiation limit. The deadline for comment was Friday, and the council released its comments Monday.

Congress asked the National Research Council to convene a scientific panel to set guidelines for the EPA's radiation protection limits. The board operates under the umbrella of the National Academy of Sciences, a national body of scientific experts.

The EPA's proposed radiation limits fail to follow some recommendations made by a scientific panel four years ago when it set those guidelines, the critics said.

The board criticized the EPA's recommendations, released in August, in three other areas:

While the board said it found many of EPA's proposals consistent with initial recommendations, several differences seem to be based on "flawed reasoning, the misapplication of science to issues that have a clear policy basis or a failure to explain fully the policy decisions embedded in the proposed standards."

The EPA said during recent public hearings in Nevada that its proposed radiation limits recognized that the mountain could not isolate radiation leaks indefinitely, exposing air, water and people in the future.

Yet the EPA said its proposed limit offered Nevadans the same protection as residents of New Mexico, where the Department of Energy opened a repository for nuclear defense wastes containing plutonium.