Nevada’s fight moves to Washington courts

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 | 11:04 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Nevada's fight against Yucca Mountain now moves from the U.S. Senate to the courts in Washington, D.C., where state officials feel they will get a fair shake.

The state has some "slam dunk" suits that can derail the building of the high-level nuclear dump, says Senior Deputy Nevada Attorney General Marta Adams, in charge of coordinating the legal fight.

"We may seek to expedite some of the cases we now have pending," said Adams after the Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Guinn said the court fight will provide a level field "and Nevada's factual, scientific arguments will be heard by impartial judges."

"The Department of Energy and the nuclear industry will no longer be able to hide behind the political process and wield their influence to move the Yucca Mountain agenda," Guinn said. "Now, perhaps for the first time in this process, the DOE will finally be held accountable for its many imprudent and unsound decisions and we are highly confident that Nevada will prevail."

Adams said the lawsuits "get to the heart of why Yucca Mountain is the wrong place to do the project.

"I want to encourage Nevadans not to give up," Adams said. "We have got to commit our heart and soul to the legal fight. We have a level playing field in the courts."

There are seven suits pending, five of them in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. The other two -- dealing with Nevada's effort to stop the Energy Department from getting water rights at Yucca Mountain -- are in the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas and the Nye County District Court in Tonopah.

The state has contracted with attorney Joseph R. Egan of Washington, D.C. for $2.5 million over three years. Eagan charges $395 an hour and some of the work is farmed out at a cost ranging up to $450 an hour.

Antonio Rossmann, a San Francisco lawyer, has also been hired for $300,000 a year. He charges $300 an hour and his associate Roger Moore bills at $210 an hour.

Bob Loux, director of the state's Office of Nuclear Projects, said the next step is clearly the courts.

He said there is $4 million to $5 million "tucked away" to finance the suits through next June 30. "We will need some money from the Legislature," in 2003, Loux said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said, if there are "indications that the legal efforts are progressing, I'm sure we would fund it fully."

In the past, Raggio said the Legislature has agreed to spend money on pending suits that showed they were productive.

Loux said Nevada's success in any of the suits would be "fatal" to the future of Yucca Mountain.

The key cases are the ones that challenge the geology and the radiation standards.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires that the waste and its radiation must be contained by the geologic formations in the mountain. The Energy Department plans to erect shields to protect the storage casks from eroding from mineralized water that enter the tunnels.

The state, in another suit in the Washington circuit court, challenges the radiation standard set for Yucca Mountain, saying it would allow contamination of drinking water. And the standard is set for 10,000 years, which is not long enough to adequately protect public health and safety from the effects of exposure to higher-level nuclear waste that becomes more lethal after 10,000 years.

Adams said she expects word from U.S District Judge Roger Hunt of Las Vegas soon on scheduling more arguments whether the Energy Department is entitled to water permits. The state denied the water permits. Judge Roger Hunt initially dismissed the Energy Department suit but the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Hunt to decide if federal law pre-empts state law. There is also a lawsuit pending in the district court in Tonopah by the DOE on the same water issue.

Adams said even if the state won this suit, the Congress could pass legislation forcing Nevada to allocate water to the site.