Nuclear waste containers called hazardous waste

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Monday, Dec. 2, 2002 | 11:01 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The Energy Department failed to obtain a hazardous waste permit for the tons of dangerous metals that would be used to fabricate the giant casks that would encase the nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada officials say.

State officials planned to file legal documents today in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., alleging that the Energy Department acted improperly by failing to get the permit. The documents will be added to a complex legal challenge to the Yucca project already pending in federal court.

State officials say waste containers proposed for use at Yucca would contain an estimated 190 million pounds of metal known as Alloy 22, containing chromium, nickel and a trace of vanadium. The metals would require a state-issued permit for disposal, they said. But the Energy Department, in its final environmental impact statement for Yucca, apparently ignored federal rules that require a permit.

"They knew (about the federal rules)," Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said today. "They just decided not to deal with it."

Another 310 million pounds of stainless steel, which contains chromium and nickel, also would require the Energy Department to obtain a permit from Nevada environmental officials, they said.

Earlier this year President Bush and Congress approved the storage of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel rods at Yucca Mountain, over the formal objection of Gov. Kenny Guinn. The dangerous waste is now piling up at commercial nuclear power plants and U.S. Defense Department sites nationwide.

Nevada officials have long battled the project, which would not be complete until 2010 at the earliest, pending approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and project construction.

Today's filing was Nevada's latest salvo in a long list of legal challenges to the Yucca project.

Clark County and the city of Las Vegas have joined the state in the federal appeals court case. The case is a consolidation of lawsuits filed by Nevada to challenge the Energy Department's final environmental impact statement, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's recommendation of the site and guidelines for locating the national dump site at Yucca. Oral arguments in the case could be heard in September 2003, pending more legal filings.

State officials say the Energy Department's final statement also lacks an adequate analysis of how spent fuel will be transported across more than 40 states to Yucca Mountain.