Where I Stand — Robert Loux: Standing up to DOE

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2001 | 8:59 a.m.

Editor's note: In August Where I Stand is written by guest columnists. Today's writer, Robert Loux, is executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Waste Projects, which is based in Carson City.

IN 1986 the federal government's program to identify sites for the nation's first deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste was under attack from all sides. The site-screening process, which was supposed to result in the identification of three acceptable sites for extensive study or characterization, was in shambles because of the way it was mismanaged and politicized by the U.S. Department of Energy and the openly biased way potential sites were eliminated from further consideration.

Enter Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., powerful chairman of the Senate Energy and Waste Development subcommittee on appropriations, who singlehandedly bailed out the DOE program by gutting the science-based selection process contained in the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

The damage done to the country's efforts to find safe and acceptable solutions for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management by the Johnston "victory" in 1986 is almost incalculable. Yucca Mountain has turned out to be an even worse site than its detractors said it was in 1986 and 1987. The Nevada site has been shown to be a fractured sieve of a geologic formation where water moves rapidly from the surface to the aquifer below, providing ready-made pathways for radiation to escape into the environment and into direct contact with people.

Even the DOE acknowledges that Yucca Mountain itself cannot isolate deadly radioactive waste. Instead, the DOE has focused its efforts on attempts to "engineer around" the many serious defects of the site. The simple concept of geologic disposal has been turned into a mad hatter, erector set-like array of exotic and highly questionable engineering fixes -- everything from waste disposal containers that are supposed to last for between 11,000 to 750,000 years to over 100 miles of emplacement tunnels lined with titanium drip shields.

If that isn't enough, the issue of waste transportation to a Yucca Mountain repository is lurking on the national horizon like a thousand-pound gorilla waiting to pounce. Indications are that cities and states around the nation (thousands of communities in at least 43 states) will not stand for the massive nuclear waste shipping campaign a Yucca Mountain repository would require. Nevada is now poised to help make people in those communities aware of what they will be facing, thanks to Gov. Kenny Guinn's foresight in requesting the Legislature fund a national public information effort and to private sector activities spawned by the governor's program.

On the legal front, Nevada is gearing up for long-awaited opportunities to finally challenge the DOE in court on a whole array of issues. If the DOE attempts to go forward with Yucca Mountain, there will be no more hiding behind the excuse that "we haven't made any decisions yet." Nevada's governor and attorney general are ready and eager to engage the legal battle.

It is in the political arena, however, where the tide has turned dramatically -- and turned in a way that offers sweet irony for Nevada. In 2001 it is Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, the new assistant majority leader in the U.S. Senate, working closely with Guinn and the state's congressional delegation, who is poised to restore political balance to the issue.

Even longtime repository supporters see the writing on the wall. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, former chair of the Senate Energy Committee and staunch supporter of attempts to force Yucca Mountain on Nevada by any means, said recently that, "(W)hen you've got a Nevada (congressional) delegation that says (Yucca Mountain) isn't going to happen over their dead body, do we want to continue looking down a rat hole or do we want to look at something else?"

A former Reagan administration official, who was one of the early supporters of the approach, whereby Yucca Mountain was singled out as the only site for study, R. Kenneth Davis, recently wrote to President Bush recommending that Yucca Mountain be "mothballed."

There are even rumblings within the nuclear power industry that further political support for Yucca Mountain may be unwise and even counterproductive to the industry's goal of reviving nuclear power.

There is something to be gained by the unfortunate experience of the past 15 years. The nation has learned valuable lessons about how not to go about finding solutions to the problem of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. We know that any future solution must be acceptable, not only to the citizens in states where the waste will be stored or managed, but also to the nation as a whole. Public acceptance will have to become more than a buzzword, with consultation and concurrence replacing federal heavy-handedness.