Agencies discuss radiation limits for Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, May 16, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Two high-ranking federal officials on Tuesday declined to discuss ongoing behind-the-scenes negotiating over controversial radiation release limits for the proposed nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman said she is working actively with the Energy Department so they can keep moving this summer on Yucca Mountain.

Whitman declined to tell reporters after a Senate hearing on the EPA's budget if she stood firmly behind the standards set by her predecessor, Carol Browner.

At issue is Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which Congress has proposed developing as the world's first high-level nuclear waste burial ground. The DOE has been studying it since 1987 and is expected this year to recommend it is a safe place to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste.

But a key concern centers on how much radiation could safely be released into the environment by the waste. Browner's EPA submitted its radiation release limit to the White House in the final days of the Clinton administration. The Bush administration is still reviewing it.

Nuclear power industry officials are worried the EPA standard is so strict it would be impossible to meet, and could effectively kill Yucca.

Officials with the EPA, DOE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been meeting privately to discuss setting a less strict standard, officials at the agencies confirmed.

At a separate hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, one of the DOE's top Yucca administrators also declined to say what a new proposed standard might be, or when it would be finalized.

"Hopefully, soon," Yucca's Acting Director Lake Barrett said.

In theory, if the current EPA standard is adopted, DOE could be forced to abandon Yucca, Barrett said.

"If we conclude that we cannot meet the standard, it is our responsibility to declare the site not suitable," Barrett said in an interview after a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Yucca budget.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's chief of staff, Marybel Batjer was scheduled to meet Thursday with Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, to deliver a plea for the tougher limits.

Nevada officials, including Guinn, oppose a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The governor has pledged $5 million in state funds to fight it in court.

Batjer said she would meet with Daniels and other OMB officials to deliver the governor's concerns face to face. In April Guinn sent a letter to President Bush urging adoption of the tougher radiation standards.

While in Washington, Batjer also plans to talk to leaders at the White House, officials at the EPA and top aides to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham about Nevada's opposition to a Yucca Mountain repository.

Sun reporter Mary Manning

contributed to this report.