Editorial: Even more damning reviews

Friday, Nov. 30, 2001 | 3:55 a.m.

The nuclear power industry has been hell-bent on trying to get the U.S. Department of Energy to sign off on the construction of a high-level nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has been expected to recommend the Yucca Mountain site to President Bush by the end of this year. But the unnecessary rush to complete the scientific review of Yucca Mountain's suitability finally has run into an obstacle. For once the nuclear power industry, which has tossed out huge campaign donations to get many members of Congress to do its bidding, has run up against people where its money doesn't matter.

The General Accounting Office, Congress' nonpartisan investigative arm, released a report last week that recommends the indefinite postponement of a decision on Yucca Mountain's suitability. The GAO notes that the investigation has been "a failed scientific process." The Department of Energy, according to the GAO, has no reliable estimate of when a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain could be opened or what the cost to do so actually would be. The GAO report is a powerful indictment against the Yucca Mountain Project.

"DOE is not ready to make a site recommendation because it does not yet have all of the technical information needed for a recommendation and a subsequent license application," the GAO report adds. Nevada officials for years have noted that the DOE has been putting the cart before the horse, making plans for opening a repository to store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste even though its own scientific review hadn't been completed.

Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley sought the GAO investigation. Reid said it was the most damning report he's ever read about the Yucca Mountain Project, and Berkley said she believed this will be the "smoking gun that will derail Yucca Mountain." The GAO report comes amid other damaging disclosures. For example, last week the DOE ended its Yucca Mountain contract with the Winston & Strawn law firm because of a blatant conflict of interest: The Chicago-based law firm also was a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry.

The U.S. government's efforts to find a place to store nuclear waste have been plagued because it has tossed aside science in the interest of politics. As the GAO report notes, at one time three sites were under consideration, one each from Washington state, Texas and Nevada. But in 1987, despite the protests by Nevada's congressional delegation, the rules were changed so that only one site in the nation would be studied: Nevada. Not so coincidentally, in 1987 Democratic House Majority Leader Tom Foley was from Washington state, and Texas had some powerful friends from the Lone Star state who lived in the nation's capital -- Republican Vice President George Bush and Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright.

The GAO suggests that the 1987 decision to narrow the number of sites was a key development. "This was the beginning of a failed scientific process that has forced continued changes in the site suitability criteria," the GAO report says. The report notes that the geology and hydrology of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository was supposed to contain the nuclear waste. Instead, the GAO report says, now the repository also would have to rely on engineered barriers to contain the waste for 10,000 years.

About $8 billion has been spent so far on the Yucca Mountain Project. It's anticipated that once it's all said and done that the total cost to build the dump could be $57.5 billion, a figure that certainly would go higher if past cost overruns are any indication. Instead of wasting even more money, it's time for President Bush to cut the government's losses and shut down forever the Yucca Mountain Project. Politics has tarnished the government's nuclear waste storage program. President Bush has an opportunity to chart a new path, one that finally discards politics in favor of science.