Leader of Yucca board stymied by DOE

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2002 | 10:03 a.m.

PAHRUMP -- The chairman of a board reviewing the Energy Department's work at Yucca Mountain threatened to cut short a meeting Wednesday with DOE experts, saying the agency consistently failed to provide evidence supporting the site's suitability as a nuclear waste repository.

Jared Cohon, chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, interrupted the meeting after becoming frustrated with what he said was the scientists' failure to provide specific information on the level of radiation that would leave the site in the event of a volcanic eruption.

Cohon said the independent board, created by Congress in 1987 to oversee the DOE's work, has for years asked the DOE to release information that could be easily interpreted by the general public.

"What makes me so annoyed is that we have made this comment over and over again," Cohon said, leaning across a table to emphasize his point. "That shows an attempt at obfuscation."

The board, in a report released last week, said the DOE's scientific foundation on its work at Yucca is "weak to moderate."

A potential volcanic eruption at the repository is one of nine key technical points in which the DOE has failed to provide crucial information that would support the safe storage of 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years, said William Reamer, deputy director for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's division of nuclear waste management.

The NRC will not allow construction at Yucca Mountain until the DOE answers questions on how fast ground water flows through the mountain, how heat from radioactive waste affects rock and water and how long metal caskets will safely contain nuclear waste, Reamer said.

According to the NRC, 293 issues pertaining to the suitability of Yucca as a nuclear waste repository remain unsolved. Only 29 of those are completed. The DOE has promised to supply sufficient scientific evidence to resolve the remaining questions, Reamer said.

Jerry McNeish, an engineer with Bechtel-SAIC, the contractor overseeing the Yucca project, tried to shed some light on the process used by the Energy Department to estimate radiation levels that would escape from the site during a volcanic eruption.

It was then that Cohon became agitated, saying McNeish's explanation was deceptive because, as McNeish later conceded, it was based on scientific probabilities and not on hard evidence.

Cohon asked to what extent Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had been briefed on DOE studies of Yucca Mountain before he announced he would recommend the mountain as a repository.

Lake Barrett, acting director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said Abraham, who toured the site for the first time Jan. 7, read thousands of pages of DOE research on the project.

"I would say it was an extensive review," Barrett said, noting Abraham had been briefed on the DOE's technical approach, repository performance estimates, volcanism, peak radiation doses and other issues.

"He has a policy-maker's understanding of the issue," Barrett said.

Abraham told Gov. Kenny Guinn on Jan. 10 he intended to recommend the site to President Bush.

Judy Treichel, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, said Nevadans fear the DOE will present a skewed view of Yucca research in its haste to recommend the site to Congress.

"What decision-makers will get is one sentence from a letter, a piece of this and a bit of that," Treichel said.

Review board members said they plan to talk to congressional representatives in detail about their concerns over the Yucca project.