Editorial: Too many disturbing questions

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2000 | 10:05 a.m.

As the years have passed during the federal government's investigation to determine whether Yucca Mountain is suitable as a repository to store high-level nuclear waste, it seems as though almost every month brings a new revelation showing how dangerous it would be to bury 77,000 tons of this waste in Nevada. And as the Sun's Mary Manning reported Tuesday, the questions are not just being raised by Nevadans who oppose the repository, they also are being aired by independent researchers and even the Department of Energy's own scientists.

Appearing Tuesday before the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, Abe van Luik, the DOE's senior policy adviser on the Yucca Mountain Project, acknowledged the doubts expressed by an international panel of petroleum experts who said their work was uncertain, but good enough to guide exploration and exploitation for oil. "I have been in meetings with scientists drowning in uncertainties, who left wringing their hands saying, 'This is impossible.' " van Luik said. It could take an additional 125 years -- possibly more -- to gather sufficient information, van Luik said.

Members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board also weren't satisfied Tuesday by the DOE's inability to identify precisely how a Yucca Mountain repository would perform over time. Jared Cohon, chairman of the review board, pressed the point about the lack of specific information. "I'm troubled and somewhat surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for quantifying uncertainty in the performance of the repository," Cohon said.

There are many questions about safety that still are unanswered, so it is disturbing that both the DOE and Congress are bent on trying to change the rules in a bid to send the waste here no matter what is found to the contrary. For instance, next week the DOE will take testimony regarding its proposal to dismiss specific guidelines -- established in 1987 -- that are supposed to be met before Yucca Mountain could be approved for a repository. Rather than allowing one issue to be a show stopper, the DOE wants to use a computer model that balances all of the factors together. But it's just plain wrong -- and bad science -- to make it easier to get the repository built simply because scientists are discovering it's impossible to do so under the existing guidelines.

Meanwhile, the Republican-led Congress itself is preparing to go even further in corrupting this process by considering legislation that would send nuclear waste to Nevada before the DOE even finishes its investigation. It indeed is a sad commentary that on such an important issue, which doesn't leave any room for error, the federal government continues to hold such a nonchalant attitude regarding the disposal of high-level nuclear waste. Ironically, the more damning information that is discovered regarding how unsuitable Yucca Mountain is for this task, the more Congress and DOE try to make it easier to ship nuclear waste here. This is, quite simply, mind boggling.