State argues against Yucca water

Monday, May 14, 2001 | 10:16 a.m.

Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa was expected to argue today that water rights for a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain should be determined at the state level.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was scheduled to hear oral arguments in a case brought by the Energy Department against Nevada after the state engineer denied rights to use 725 acre-feet of ground water to build and operate a repository for commercial spent reactor fuel and defense nuclear wastes.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to store the 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

In September 2000 U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt dismissed a federal complaint that a state engineer denied the DOE water to construct and operate a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain. Hunt ruled the decision is a matter of state law and subject to review in a state District Court.

Attorneys for the DOE are expected to argue that federal law preempts the state engineer's decision.

"Simply put, DOE has no authority to proceed with construction and development of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, and is therefore patently premature in its claims that federal law preempts the state engineer's decision," Del Papa said. "Although it's too early to anticipate the 9th Circuit's reaction to the arguments, I am confident in the state's case."