Feds state case on nuke dump water rights request

Brendan Riley

Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1999 | 10:08 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Backers of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain say groundwater can be pumped for the project without harming neighbors' water supplies - a point that state officials are conceding.

Scientists hired by the federal Energy Department went over geologic features of the area, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to show Monday that water rights are available and pumping shouldn't hurt nearby water-users.

The requested 430 acre-feet per year of Amargosa Valley groundwater "is well within what's available from the basin," DOE lawyer Brent Kolvet said during a break in a hearing before state Engineer Mike Turnipseed.

"It's not going to impact anybody else," Kolvet added in stressing the DOE's main arguments to Turnipseed, who will issue a written ruling.

Nevada state government representatives who oppose the dump didn't try to cross-examine the scientists to counter their conclusion that there is adequate water.

"We just don't have evidence to refute that," Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams said. "So our focus is really on the public interest. It's detrimental to the public interest of the state of Nevada."

In opposing the water-pumping request at the hearing's start last week, Nevada officials said the high-level nuclear trash dump could cost the Las Vegas economy millions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

Opponents also raised the specter of nuclear waste spilling while being transported to Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain is the only site the DOE is studying for storage of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Its efforts have been heavily backed by the nuclear energy industry.

The DOE is using ground water now on a temporary permit that expires in 2002. The agency says that if Turnipseed denies the application, work will be harder but will continue at the isolated desert location.

Nevada, backed by various environmental groups, has been battling the DOE since a long-term storage facility was first proposed for southern Nevada more than a decade ago.

As the debate continues, lethal commercial waste continues to stack up at nuclear plants around the nation. More than 42,000 tons of waste is now kept, most of it in cooling pools not designed for permanent safekeeping.

Critics argue it makes more sense to improve storage of most high-level waste where it is now located than to build the dump at Yucca Mountain.