Guinn considers taking DOE to court

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 11:14 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn said this morning he was considering going to court to stop the Department of Energy from collaborating with the nuclear industry to make Yucca Mountain the site of the nation's high-level nuke waste dump.

Guinn said he was "stunned by the hidden actions" of the DOE in the site selection process.

"If I, as governor of the state, can take legal action, I want to put the Department of Energy on notice that I will do it," Guinn said. "They're not playing by the rules of integrity and honesty. It's very discouraging."

Guinn said he was outraged after reading a copyrighted Sun story Friday that reported the DOE has been working with the nuclear industry to prepare a public report that will recommend Yucca Mountain.

Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides during the site selection process.

"We have tried to work with them in a professional, friendly, up-front manner," Guinn said. "And all this time, they were working on a hidden report that goes against everything that we, as a state, have been trying to do -- to make sure that this is predicated on science. They've turned this into a political process."

Guinn said he planned to talk to Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa about the prospects for legal action against the DOE.

The Sun reported Friday that it had obtained a draft of a 60-page DOE overview that concludes Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is safe to store the radioactive waste, even though an epic study of the Nevada site has not been completed.

Attached to the draft is a two-page note, put together by DOE contractors, that suggests the overview is designed to help nuclear industry officials sell the Yucca Mountain Project to Congress.

"The overview provides information that potential supporters can use in expressing support for a site recommendation," the note says.

Ivan Itkin, director of the DOE's Civilian Waste Management Office in Washington, said he disapproved of the note and removed it from subsequent drafts of the overview.

Itkin insisted the DOE is doing a professional and objective job of evaluating Yucca Mountain. But he acknowledged he is close to recommending the mountain as a safe site.

The wording of the unsigned note angered Nevada's two Democratic Senators, Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, who called it convincing evidence of "bias" by DOE against the state.

Reid said he planned hold hearings early next year into the DOE's actions.

This morning, Nevada's two House members, Rep. Shelley Berkley and Rep. Jim Gibbons, joined Guinn in ripping into the DOE.

Berkley, a Democrat, called the disclosure of the two-page note a "scandal of mega proportions."

"Nevada officials have been saying for at least a decade that the Department of Energy has been in cahoots with the nuclear industry from the beginning to locate the dump at Yucca Mountain no matter what," Berkley said.

"As far as I'm concerned this is the smoking gun, and DOE officials need to be called on the carpet to explain themselves and begin to make amends to the people of Nevada."

Berkley said she plans on sending a "dear colleague" letter to her fellow House members so that they "can see for themselves the duplicity and complicity of the Department of Energy."

She also said she wants to hold hearings in Nevada on the DOE's actions.

Gibbons, a Republican, said he would participate in any hearings involving the DOE.

"We want to find out what kind of sweetheart deal they structured behind our backs," Gibbons said.

"This kind of backroom deal bypasses the public safety and health of Nevadans and is contrary to the laws that Congress passed requiring the site suitability to be finalized before any recommendation is made."

Former Gov. Bob Miller, who led the fight against the Yucca Mountain site during his 10 years at the helm of the state, said the DOE's "collusion" with the nuclear industry fits a long-standing pattern.

"It's a pattern that just doesn't go away no matter who's running the department," he said. "If the DOE proceeds on this course, our last recourse will be the courts."

The secret contractor's note says the overview presents Yucca Mountain as the "key component in the DOE's proposed solution" to the country's nuclear waste problem.

"It is narrowly focused on the suitability of the site because decision-makers and the public are equally concerned about transportation and other issues that bear upon the site recommendation decision," the note says.

"In fact, the technical suitability of the site is less of a concern to Congress than the broader issue of whether the nuclear waste problem can be solved at an affordable price in both financial and political terms."

Those words, Bryan said, "trivialize" the years of technical work done at Yucca Mountain.

"That is in fact saying the public and the health and safety of Nevada be damned," he said.

The overview says the new price tag for the Yucca Mountain dump and the transportation of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste here has soared to $58 billion, well above the previous $36 billion estimate of the mid-1990s.

Summarized in the overview is the DOE report of a 15-year Yucca Mountain study, which could be made public by the end of this year.

"The report concludes that a repository that is likely to meet the safety standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the licensing requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can be designed, constructed and operated at the Yucca Mountain site," the draft says.