DOE gets extension, but only three years, on use of Yucca land

Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove

Monday, April 9, 2001 | 11:01 a.m.

The Air Force has granted a three-year right-of-way extension to the Department of Energy to continue studies at the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

The Air Force owns Yucca as part of its desert training range. Since 1980 the Air Force, in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management, has granted the DOE permits for studies related to Yucca. The current seven-year permit was to expire Tuesday.

DOE scientists and contractors have been analyzing the mountain since 1987, when Congress designated the site as the nation's only high-level radioactive waste burial ground.

The DOE is scheduled later this year to report to Congress on whether it is safe to bury the waste inside the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The waste is now stored at nuclear power plants and Department of Defense sites nationwide. If approved, Yucca could be completed by 2010, according to DOE estimates.

The Air Force has typically granted the DOE seven-year permits, but this year granted only a three-year extension. The Air Force gave the DOE a shorter extension, pending the DOE's recommendation to Congress, Air Force spokeswoman Marriane Miclat said today.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said that decision was good news for Nevada officials who oppose burying waste at Yucca.

Nevada officials have accused the DOE of bias toward completing the project even before studies prove that it is safe. The fact that the DOE is requesting another seven years of access to Yucca signals that the agency is predisposed to completing the project, said Gibbons, who had voiced his objection to the Air Force over the seven-year extension.

"The request of the DOE to extend its access to land near Yucca Mountain shows, yet again, that the agency is relentlessly committed to creating a nuclear waste repository in Nevada," said Gibbons, a former Air Force combat pilot. "I am pleased the United States Air Force understood the importance of this matter and did not agree to a special permit deal."

The Air Force has objected to Yucca's use as a nuclear waste site because it could interfere with fighter pilot training.