EPA official hedges on Yucca investigation

Jace Radke

Tuesday, June 19, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

Nevada officials and environmental groups may have to wait two months to learn whether the Environmental Protection Agency's top consumer advocate will open a case into the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

EPA Ombudsman Robert Martin, accompanied by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., held a preliminary hearing Monday on a possible review of safety standards at Yucca Mountain. But before Martin can begin investigating in earnest, jurisdictional questions have to be answered, he said.

"The agency feels that I, as an ombudsman, may not have jurisdiction over these standards," Martin said at the hearing at the Bank West office building on West Sahara Avenue.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to hold 77,000 tons of highly radioactive commercial and defense waste. The EPA recently issued guidelines that would restrict the amount of radiation allowed to escape from the proposed repository, if it is built.

Those guidelines -- 15 millirems per year of exposure to an average person outside the repository boundaries, with 4 millirems of that allowed to come through ground water -- are stricter than those sought by the nuclear industry. A chest X-ray is 5 millrems.

"Because this issue is so important, I will take the next day or two to put together a service list of all parties who are affected by this," Martin said. "I'll then get opinions on my jurisdiction over the case and make a decision if we'll go forward in the next 30 to 60 days."

His role could be stymied by proposed rules that would allow the EPA to veto the ombudsman's role in some cases, but those are on hold after EPA administrator Christie Whitman said she would work with Congress to create an independent and accountable ombudsman.

Berkley said she was delighted that Martin made the trip to Las Vegas to consider investigating Yucca Mountain.

"Obviously this man doesn't travel if it's not something he thinks needs to be looked into," Berkley said. "We need to protect the people in this community. We need the EPA ombudsman to look at the standards and make a determination about whether they are just or reasonable."

About 10 people, including Robert Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, and representatives from Clark County and the Sierra Club, gave Martin their opinions about the proposed dump.

"Since this started in 1979, the state has been concerned about the way that science and politics have seemed to mesh to point to this site, even though it should have been disqualified," Loux said. "The goalposts have always seemed to shift on this so that the ball always goes through. If it's not up to the standards, then new standards are adopted."

While Martin has no power to compel the EPA to accept his findings, he said that during his nine years as ombudsman in the EPA's Office of Solid Waste the agency has agreed with his recommendations about 80 percent of the time.

Martin said that he would like Loux and the others at the meeting to get the word out that the possibility of an investigation exists.

"The more people involved, the more successful this will be, and I mean that for both sides," Martin said. "This is going to be a long service list."