NRC in no hurry to license Yucca Mountain nuke dump

Friday, July 14, 2000 | 10:54 a.m.

The Department of Energy has more work to do before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will consider a license for building and operating a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the new NRC chairman said Thursday.

Richard Meserve, after his first visit to the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas on Thursday, said the DOE must complete scientific studies before the NRC could consider a license application. The license review could take up to four years.

The DOE has to prove the mountain will safely contain 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste for at least 10,000 years, Meserve said.

"There's a long time to go before a license application can be submitted," he said. The DOE's schedule calls for a repository to open at Yucca in 2010.

The DOE's Ivan Itkin has said a recommendation on Yucca's suitability to contain the nuclear wastes would be made to the Energy Department secretary in mid-2001. Itkin is the director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

However, a Senate subcommittee on Thursday froze DOE's funds at $351 million for fiscal year 2001, the same level of funding as this year's budget. Itkin has told Congress that a fund shortage could delay the project.

"If there is not sufficient funding, that will slow things down, I imagine," said Meserve, a physicist and a lawyer who has been at the helm of the NRC since November.

But any delay on DOE's part will not make the licensing process less rigorous, Meserve said. The NRC could take up to four years to review the application during a formal hearing, once the president and Congress approve. And the president has no deadline to recommend a repository site, he said.

In addition, the state of Nevada has the right to veto the project and then two-thirds of Congress would have to vote to override the state's objection, which could cause further delays of an NRC license.

The NRC's chief concern is how fast water moves through the mountain. If water reaches buried waste containers and corrodes them, the environment could be exposed to radiation, Meserve said.

"When and if we come to the time there is a license application, we will take it very seriously," Meserve said.

NRC's on-site reviewers also have been critical of the quality of DOE's scientific work, writing voluminous reports about how hard it is to find the basis of some scientific data. Commissioners expect surprises during a licensing hearing. "There may be, no doubt, some issues that we don't know about today," he said.

The NRC is also considering a proposal to change the rules on its hearing process, making it less rigorous for nuclear reactor applicants.

"That decision is independent of Yucca Mountain," Meserve said. "I'm inclined to seek public comment on whether we should streamline the rules. I have not reached a conclusion on the Yucca Mountain side."

Meserve spent today meeting informally and individually with local government, state, Indian tribe and environmental representatives.