Complaints against DOE mounting

Thursday, Dec. 28, 2000 | 11:32 a.m.

Nevada lawmakers have voiced their concerns to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson about alleged bias against the state in the selection of the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump.

State Sen. Ann O'Connell, chairwoman of the Legislative Commission, sent a letter of protest to Richardson last week, questioning whether the Department of Energy is collaborating with the nuclear industry to make Yucca Mountain the site of the repository.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only storage site the DOE is studying to house 77,000 tons of high-level waste from nuclear plants around the country.

Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides in the selection process.

O'Connell, a Las Vegas Republican, said a two-page memo from a Yucca Mountain contractor, recently disclosed by the Sun, suggested the DOE was preparing a report to help the nuclear industry sell Yucca Mountain to Congress.

"This memorandum raises serious questions about the validity of the claims that sound science will be the only basis for a site suitability recommendation," O'Connell wrote.

"The DOE's integrity and claimed unbiased approach to this highly controversial project have been greatly compromised in the view of Nevada officials and citizens.

"It appears to us that the claim by the project opponents that DOE is prejudiced may very well be true."

O'Connell concluded: "We would ask you to provide an explanation of this matter and explain how DOE plans to demonstrate that science and not a DOE bias will be the determining factor in making a site recommendation to the president."

The Legislative Commission conducts the Legislature's business between sessions.

State Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, requested the letter at the last commission meeting earlier this month. Titus was an early critic of the memo, which has since been disavowed by Richardson and his chief Yucca Mountain overseer, Ivan Itkan, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in Washington.

"This sends a clear message that the Legislature is not pleased with the way the DOE is operating," Titus said this morning.

Titus and Assembly Speaker-elect Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, plan to introduce bipartisan resolutions criticizing the DOE when the Legislature convenes in Carson City in February.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has asked the DOE's inspector general to investigate the agency's possible bias against Yucca Mountain, and Richardson has requested an investigation into the conduct of the Nevada project's chief contractor, TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc.