Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001 | 11:32 a.m.
AMARGOSA VALLEY -- The 5-mile-long tunnel that provides access to underground study sites at Yucca Mountain is damper than experts overseeing the project realized.
Drip cloths hanging in the tunnel's alcove were wet, Energy Department scientist Mark Peters told the independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board on Wednesday.
If the dampness is an indication of ground water seeping through the mountain, a nuclear waste repository planned for the site could be in jeopardy. However, if the moisture is condensation, the problem is less severe, scientists say.
"Soaked?" board member Debra Knopman, a hydrologist and environmental scientist, said. Peters nodded.
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to hold 77,000 tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste. If it passes scientific muster, the mountain could receive the first shipments by 2010.
The presence of water in the tunnel is worrisome because ground water can corrode canisters that would hold the waste. If it reaches spent nuclear fuel, the radioactivity could escape.
What scientists are trying to determine is whether the dripping is coming from ground water, which is highly corrosive because of its mineral content, or condensation, which is harmless.
The U.S. Geological Survey plans to analyze samples for mineral content, John Stuckless, a scientist with the agency, said.
DOE scientists have been surprised at finding more water than expected in the mountain, Russ Dyer, DOE's Yucca Mountain project director in Nevada, said.
"It is presumptuous to think we know all there is to know," Dyer said.
One key study area is the travel of the ground water through the desert rock from ancient volcanic eruptions. If water travels to the repository level 1,000 feet deep within 10,000 years, it could indicate serious problems for the project.
The DOE has been looking for fast paths that might be carrying water through the mountain since Los Alamos scientists discovered radioactive chlorine-36, a chemical remnant of atomic bomb blasts in the Pacific Ocean during the 1950s, in the rock, Peters said. The chemical was traced to the Pacific blasts, and was carried eastward by winds. The radiation was discovered almost 1,000 feet deep along earthquake faults.
When the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California tried to duplicate the experiment last year, no chlorine-36 was detected. Both laboratories are pursuing the chlorine-36, Peters said.
"That's the $10,000 question," he said when board members asked him when the mystery might be solved. The DOE is hoping to have some conclusion by the end of the year, Peters said.
The DOE also expects to recommend to the president and Congress by year's end whether to proceed with the repository. The decision, originally scheduled for June, was delayed while the DOE inspector general investigates whether the DOE has a conflict of interest with the contractors.
The investigation was launched after the Sun reported Dec. 1 on a memo attached to a draft overview of the project that indicated that the overview could be used to sell the project to Congress.
The DOE is required by law to remain unbiased through the selection process.
Board members, all appointed by former President Bill Clinton, and area residents challenged the DOE during the two-day meeting at Amargosa Valley, a small farming community 12 miles from Yucca Mountain, to explain how complicated engineering formulas will lead to safe storage of the wastes for thousands of years.
Review board Chairman Jared Cohon said that the DOE's ultimate goal was to prove a repository at the mountain would not harm public health.
"Public health should stand on its own," Cohon said, referring to the maze of technical reports presented over two days.
Merlynn Rose of Pahrump said she wasn't waiting for scientific reassurances about the fate of high-level nuclear waste.
"I don't need science to tell me something could blow up," Rose said.
Instead of relying on layered metals and packages to contain the waste inside the mountain, Kalynda Tilges, nuclear issues coordinator for the watchdog group Citizen Alert, suggested keeping the spent fuel in dry containers at nuclear reactor sites.
"Don't put them in my back yard," she said. "You weren't given permission," Tilges referred to the 1987 congressional decision to single out Yucca Mountain as the only site to study for the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository. Before that, sites in New England and the Midwest were considered.
"The majority of Nevadans don't want the waste here," Tilges said. "We want you out of here. We don't want your project."
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