Air Force, DOE at odds over repository site access

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001 | 10:41 a.m.

Scientific studies at Yucca Mountain, the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository, have been delayed this week after the Air Force refused to grant the Department of Energy unrestricted access to the site.

The Air Force has protested the use of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a waste dump since studies there began in 1983.

The Air Force and the Bureau of Land Management own the mountain. The Air Force jurisdiction covers about 3 miles of the DOE's study area, and the department needs military permission to enter the site. Another 2 miles of the study tunnel belong to the BLM.

Over the years the bureau and the Air Force have had to renew permission for the DOE to enter the mountain's restricted lands. The Air Force has protested developing Yucca Mountain because nuclear waste shipments would cross military lands and fighter pilots train over the proposed repository.

The Air Force sent a letter granting the DOE 90 days of access to Yucca today to the Bureau of Land Management, but the bureau had not received it at Sun press time, the BLM's Bob Stewart said from Reno.

All public tours of the mountain's 5-mile-long study tunnel were canceled this week due to the Air Force's refusing its permission, said Gayle Fisher, DOE Yucca Mountain spokeswoman.

Critical scientific studies inside the tunnel continued, Fisher said.

Department scientists enter the mountain from the southeast, across land that belongs to the Nevada Test Site, where the United States once exploded nuclear weapons experiments and nuclear space engines were fired at the surface.

"If they need to go back there to protect scientific integrity, they are allowed," Fisher said, adding access had been restricted.

Such ongoing studies as how fast water travels through the mountain, the effects of heat from the wastes on Yucca's rock and changes to the soils inside the mountain are continuing, she said.