Legality of Yucca recommendation questioned

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

The way the U.S. Department of Energy plans to recommend Yucca Mountain as a high-level nuclear waste repository to the president and Congress next year could be illegal, a Clark County consultant said.

DOE officials told a committee of the Nevada Legislature on Wednesday that both an environmental impact report and a site recommendation on Yucca Mountain should be ready by the end of June.

But John Gervers, who consults on nuclear waste for Clark and White Pine counties in Nevada and Inyo County, Calif., said the timetable does not allow states, Indian tribes and the public time to review the environmental impacts before DOE recommends the site.

A 1969 federal law requires six months for review of environmental impact statements before decisions are made.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied for a repository to bury 77,000 tons of the nation's highly radioactive waste.

"That is an interesting legal position," Gervers said of DOE's approach. "The DOE would violate the National Environmental Policy Act by not allowing enough time for environmental impact reviews."

DOE spokesman Allan Benson pointed out that the final decision on recommending Yucca as a nuclear waste repository is up to the next president and Congress, not the Energy Department. The DOE timetable shows that decision being made within 30 days of DOE's recommendation.

"We are following the law," he said.

"We are not here to support a decision on a repository or support the approval of a repository," Scott Wade, DOE's acting site management division director, told the Legislature's High Level Radioactive Waste Committee.

The DOE is driving the nuclear repository according to an unrealistic timetable, a Nevada official said.

"The site always looks best before you start looking at it," Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency on Nuclear Projects, said. "DOE has made the assumption that the site is suitable."

The state is spending $1.5 million next year to continue studying the metal that will be used for containers to bury the nuclear wastes, earthquake hazards and possible volcanic activity near Yucca, Loux said, adding an environmental review will take time.

If the DOE does not give Nevada extra time to review its final environmental impact report, Loux said, the state is prepared to seek legal remedies. He did not offer details on the state's legal strategy.

Ordinary people are confused and concerned about DOE's expectations recommending Yucca Mountain as a repository, an opponent of the repository said.

"The public has never seen any evidence that the DOE has considered their comments," Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force Director Judy Treichel said. The task force represents the public at technical DOE hearings.

Legislative committee chairman Sen. Lawrence Jacobsen, a Republican from Minden, said many Nevadans, including legislators, are in the dark as to what influence public comments have on the final decision.

Jacobsen asked Treichel to put her concerns in writing and submit them to the Legislature next year in Carson City.