Veto won’t deter Yucca work

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, April 25, 2000 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton is expected tonight to veto a bill that speeds nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007, likely killing the legislation until Congress takes it up again early next year.

Meanwhile studies and data-crunching continue at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the Department of Energy forges ahead with a plan to one day make Nevada the home of the world's first high-level radioactive waste dump.

"We are moving ahead with the proposal," said Allen Benson, Yucca Mountain Project spokesman for the Department of Energy. "The legislation (veto) is not going to affect the near-term. We are on schedule."

The latest round of sparring in Congress over Yucca hasn't affected the on-going plans to study and eventually construct the cavernous nuclear waste storage site deep below Yucca Mountain. In fact the DOE is seeking bids from contractors for work that includes the initial stages of construction of the storage facility.

Congress in 1987 designated Yucca as the best place to bury 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level waste, and studies have continued since then.

"That's the law of the land," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "Not me, not President Clinton, can counteract the law of the land."

So recent debating in Congress has not focused on whether to ship waste to Nevada but on a myriad of technical details such as establishing a timeline for waste shipments and working out transportation plans.

That doesn't mean Yucca Mountain is a done deal. The Yucca plan still needs key approvals from several federal bodies, including the president:

"The process moves forward, and that often gets lost in all this, but no one has said that Yucca is suitable," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said today.

Nevada's four-member delegation in Congress believes that the studies at Yucca will prove that the mountain is not a safe place to store waste. If that happens, Congress will have to start over the search for a new nuclear waste solution.

"The only thing that can put the brakes on effectively now is a showstopper in terms of the (environmental) qualifications of the mountain," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., a geologist, said.

A number of Nevada officials say evidence indicates the DOE is finding problems at Yucca. For instance, growing evidence proves the ground is unstable in the Yucca area and that patterns of water movement through the mountain threatens the plan, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. Loux acts as Nevada's watchdog of the Department of Energy's studies.

"They've got a long way to go, despite what they say," Loux said. "They are having some real trouble with this site."

Bryan added, "The scientific concerns loom larger today than 17 years ago when the process began."

However, a draft version of the DOE's environmental impact statement for Yucca did not find any "showstoppers," department officials say. More reports and studies will be complete next year.

"Things are coming to a head," Benson said.

Just last month the DOE began seeking bids from the world's leading engineering and construction companies for the next stage of work at Yucca, spanning from August to 2006, with options through 2011.

At a February meeting in Las Vegas, 66 contractors and subcontractors attended an information meeting about bidding on the $3.2 billion contract. Bids are due June 8.

Benson said it is important for the DOE to move forward even though the president, Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have not approved Yucca as the nation's waste site.

"You have to be ready to go when they are ready to go," Benson said. "You need to be sure you at least have the infrastructure in place."

Back in Washington, Clinton is expected to veto the latest version of a nuclear waste bill because the timeline is unreasonable, the funding mechanisms in the bill are not adequate and transportation problems have not been solved, the president's staffers have said.

The bill, approved by the Senate in February and the House in March, would speed up shipments of waste to Nevada by 2007, even though Yucca will not be ready to accept waste by 2010.

Nevada's members of Congress expect the bill, or another version of it, to surface early in the new congressional session next year, after voters elect a new president and some new members of Congress.

Clinton's veto drew praise from Nevada members who see it as another battle won -- for now -- in their fight against the waste dump. Congress is expected to sustain the veto.

"What it (the veto) is that the president believes the veto pen is mightier than the nuclear industry's check book," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

"I'm delighted that the president has not bowed to the demands of the Republican leadership," Berkley said. "He's taking a very courageous stand for Nevada."

Benjamin Grove covers Washington for the Sun. He can be reached at (202) 628-3100 ext. 269 or by e-mail at grove@lasvegassun.com