Budget cuts can delay licensing of Yucca

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1999 | 10:31 a.m.

If Congress cuts the Department of Energy's budget for the fiscal year 2000, a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will not open in 2010, a DOE official said Tuesday.

As the House and Senate prepared to negotiate on the DOE's budget this week, Lake Barret, acting director of the department's civilian nuclear waste program, told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the department could not submit a license application on time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is responsible for licensing a nuclear waste repository.

The DOE was working to submit a license application to the commission by March 2002, Barrett said. Funding reductions have already delayed that move to late December 2002 or January 2003, he said.

If Congress approves a House proposal of $281 million for Yucca Mountain instead of a Senate offer of $358 million, the license application could be delayed further, Barrett said.

The department asked for $409 million to continue studies necessary to prove the mountain is scientifically sound.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository.

Because of the delays facing the Yucca Mountain project, Barrett said the DOE has narrowed its focus to proving the site is suitable to keep 70,000 tons of highly radioactive waste away from people and the environment. The department should have its information available to the public by November 2000.

The DOE has released its take on environmental impacts from a Yucca Mountain repository and the public has until Feb. 9 to comment on the 1,400-page document available in two volumes or on the Internet.

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