NRC seeking LV locale for Yucca licensing hearings

Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that is charged with licensing a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, is searching for space in Las Vegas for future hearings on the license.

The search comes long before the officials can be sure there will be hearings, and that rush might indicate a bias in favor of a repository, Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday.

NRC officials say they are just gathering information to prepare for the agency's budget two years from now.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to hold 77,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste. The Energy Department is not expected to make its recommendation to Congress and the president on whether to build a repository until the end of this year. The repository, if approved, could open by 2010.

Already the DOE is the subject of two federal investigations into a possible conflict of interest between the agency, its contractors and the nuclear industry. The investigations are looking into evidence of a possible DOE bias in favor of a repository. The DOE and the NRC by law are required to remain unbiased throughout the process.

Loux said on Tuesday that he fears the DOE and the NRC share a common goal: build a Yucca Mountain repository at all costs.

"There is a huge level of shared bias and belief between these two federal agencies and their contractors that the site is suitable," Loux said.

In a Jan. 23 e-mail to the commission's Las Vegas field office, NRC attorney Mitzi Young said the agency "might plan a scouting trip" at the end of April to find a hearing room that can hold up to 500 people.

The NRC needs a hearing room, meeting rooms, office equipment such as phones, computers, faxes, copiers and hotel rooms for two six-month periods, Young wrote.

By arranging meeting rooms for a licensing hearing, the NRC "has bought into the idea that the site is suitable and licensable," Loux said.

By law the NRC has three years to examine all of the scientific evidence gathered by the DOE and critics such as the state, then decide if the mountain can safely contain the waste.

Rather than similar interests between the NRC and the DOE driving the search for meeting space in Las Vegas, the commission is simply trying to justify its budget, which is set two years in advance, Las Vegas field representative William Belke said.

"I think what they are trying to do is budget the process," Belke said.

"They must plan for the future even though the site hasn't been confirmed," he said.

"Right now nothing is concrete," Belke said.

The DOE doesn't expect to recommend Yucca Mountain as a repository until the end of this year.