Berkley seeks more public Yucca hearings

Monday, Oct. 30, 2000 | 10:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is seeking more public comment time in the approval process for Yucca Mountain, the federal government's proposed nuclear waste burial site.

Berkley last week sent a letter to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson asking that he schedule public hearings 60 days after the Energy Department releases a site recommendation consideration report, expected within the next two months. The department had planned to schedule the hearings right after the report's release.

Berkley also sent a letter to Bureau of Land Management Field Office in Las Vegas, requesting that the bureau add another 30 days to the public comment period on the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain right-of-way renewal application. That would give people until Dec. 4 to comment on the DOE right-of-way renewal.

The department is studying Yucca Mountain, located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to determine if it is a safe place to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The DOE wants to open the waste site by 2010.