Nevadans concerned about plan on nuke hearings

Wednesday, May 31, 2000 | 11:25 a.m.

Nevada officials are concerned by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposal to change its licensing hearings to less formal proceedings as a possible license looms for a Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository.

"Our fears are that the process could be rubber-stamped," Michon Mackedon, a member of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday in Las Vegas.

The commission provides state oversight on the federal government's work at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca is the only site being studied as a potential repository for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Nevada officials fear that streamlining the hearing process could hurt the state's chances to fight the Yucca license and could speed up sending the nation's waste here.

Commission hearings to license a nuclear power reactor or other facility usually are as formal as a court trial. All testimony is recorded and witnesses may be cross-examined by those opposing the license.

However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is discussing an informal approach to Yucca Mountain, one that would not require extensive testimony or cross examination.

The NRC is the final agency to review the mountain's ability to contain the wastes that will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

Given the fact that the Department of Energy is trying to open a repository in 2010, that $6 billion has been spent by the federal government on scientific studies and produced a mountain of documents, Nevadans fear that the licensing process will become little more than a formality, Mackedon said.

What happens as Yucca Mountain is reviewed will affect nuclear waste standards throughout the world, he said. "This is a landmark project," she said. "Nevada needs a formal license proceeding. We want this as a true trial of evidence."

The NRC's Bill Reamer tried to reassure the Nevada commission that the nuclear panel understands the state's concerns.

License hearings before the NRC are "public litigation," said Reamer, who is chief of the high-level waste and performance assessment for the commission's staff.

Nevadans are frustrated and do not believe any agency involved with Yucca Mountain listens to their concerns about radiation escaping from a repository or from shipping containers on the way to the mountain, Judy Treichel, director of the Nuclear Waste Task Force, said.

"The public feels shut out of the process," she said.

"It's a formal licensing process that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducts now, and that's what the people of Nevada want," Treichel said.

The state also has been concerned about NRC staff meetings with DOE officials from the Yucca Mountain project, said Robert Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. No other licensing body meets with those who will ask for a license, he said.