Yucca guideline unveiled

Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

Department of Energy officials on Wednesday unveiled what they think are the essential criteria for licensing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain -- an important milestone in the 14-year-old plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in the Nevada desert.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would be responsible for licensing the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository, promptly stressed that it still has many concerns about the site.

The NRC is "not drawing any conclusions concerning the actual site suitability," commission officials said in a prepared statement. The DOE published its report in the Federal Register, saying a repository at the Yucca Mountain site, based on 15 years' worth of scientific studies, is capable of containing radiation from 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years. The Federal Register is the official legal repository for agency regulations, rules, notices and presidential documents.

Nevada officials said they are reviewing the DOE's 40 pages of guidelines. They object to numerous provisions that suggest the site is a safe waste site.

Nevada officials, including Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, said the state may sue the government to stop the project based on the DOE document.

State officials have opposed the repository project since it was listed as one of nine possible sites for waste burial in 1982. Congress in 1987 designated Yucca as the best site, and scientists have been analyzing it ever since.

The criteria have addressed: how fast ground water travels through Yucca Mountain; earthquake potential because the mountain is in a seismically active area; and the possible failure of containers filled with nuclear waste that would release radiation before the 10,000-year legal timeline for a repository.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the DOE report does not contain key studies, including an assessment of terrorism threats and the transportation risks of shipping nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada.

"The report is flawed, just as all the other reports have been flawed," Gibbons said. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., agreed.

"We have said all along that the DOE had its mind made up about Yucca 10 years ago," Ensign said. "They have always said, 'Here is the safest site. Now let's go out and try to prove it.' "

Although the DOE has had established safety criteria for a repository since 1984, Guinn said the department has refused to adequately compare them with Yucca Mountain, because the site would have been disqualified.

"The department's response is the issuance of new regulations in an attempt to ensure that the site would pass," Guinn said. "Changing the rules to fit the site has been the hallmark of this entire program."

Del Papa said her office will soon file a formal challenge to the DOE's guidelines. The legal action would be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. within weeks.

While the DOE has now published its safety criteria for the waste site, the DOE has not published its final results of scientific studies on the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But at a meeting in Washington this week, DOE Yucca chief Lake Barrett said the DOE has gathered enough scientific evidence to begin briefing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

"Everybody at this point is anxious for a decision to be made one way or the other," Barrett said. "We're not learning as much per dollar per day as we did in the past."

Abraham has said he plans to issue a decision on Yucca Mountain at the end of this year or early next year to President Bush.

Then, if Bush and Congress approve Yucca Mountain, and the plan withstands opposition by the state of Nevada, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must review and approve it before any waste is shipped to Nevada on trucks and trains.

NRC Chairman Richard Meserve issued a 25-page report to the DOE on Wednesday that outlined 47 areas of concern about Yucca. The concerns ranged from ongoing research on how fast water flows through the mountain to what could happen if a volcano erupts through the buried waste containers.

The DOE has promised to deliver more information to the NRC before asking the commission for a license by 2003 to build Yucca Mountain.

Meserve's report also contains a critical area of concern, one that has been watched by the NRC throughout the DOE's studies of Yucca Mountain: "Among the areas warranting management's attention is improving the safety conscious work environment in the Yucca Mountain Project."

The National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, an organization of independent scientists, issued a statement Wednesday that said it has "not taken a position on whether the Yucca Mountain site should be recommended for a mined geological repository."

The academy has concluded that geologic disposal is scientifically and technically sound, a Sept. 21 letter to the DOE said.