Yucca foes shift focus to NRC

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, July 11, 2002 | 11:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Anti-Yucca Mountain activists said they plan to sustain their effort to derail the project, despite a crushing blow to their cause in the Senate this week.

"One thing is for certain: Yucca Mountain is not over," said Jim Warren, of the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network.

Senators on Tuesday voted 60-39 to approve the plan to construct a permanent burial ground for high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada site. The vote marked the end of years of legislative battles in Congress over the desert mountain.

It was a profound disappointment to project foes because it was the last time elected lawmakers would vote on it.

Now it will be up to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether the site is safe enough to license as a national nuclear waste dump, a process that could take years.

But leading activists said they aim to keep their anti-Yucca infrastructure intact, shifting focus from Congress to the NRC. They plan to poke holes in the Energy Department's proposals, as well as the NRC's licensing process. They intend to make high-profile appearances at public NRC hearings.

"It's our role to watchdog the federal agencies, and we'll continue to do that," said Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., also plan to shift their focus to the NRC. Congress still has budgetary, and indirectly, some regulatory authority over the project, they said.

Ensign said public pressure on the NRC to keep the Yucca review process fair will snowball as people continue to learn about the project.

"The reason (the activists) are so important is because this is going to be a constant public relations battle," Ensign said.

Reid, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said he plans to continue his annual effort to slash the Yucca budget Congress allocates each year. The House just voted to approve $525 million for Yucca Mountain next year, which Reid will attack in a conference committee. Reid is also chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the NRC, which gives him a bird's eye view of the NRC's Yucca review process.

Reid also plans to begin a series of committee hearings within weeks that examine nuclear waste and Yucca issues, he said.

"We have oversight responsibilities," Reid said. "We aren't going to do anything that appears punitive (to the NRC), but we are going to be very pro-active."

Activists said that in the months before Tuesday's closely watched Senate vote, grassroots anti-Yucca groups mobilized like never before in opposition to Yucca.

National news media attention, coupled with a glut of both pro- and anti-Yucca advertising that ran in local markets nationwide focused a spotlight on the issue, activists said.

More people than ever are familiar with the 20-year-old plan to establish a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, they say.

"It's very important that we take advantage of all the attention on this issue and keep people informed, and that we get senators, including the ones who voted against us, to ask tough questions, and to keep them accountable for their votes to move all this waste through people's neighborhoods," said Anna Aurelio, a scientist with U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Aurelio said the public can continue to pressure Congress in other ways, including a call for an independent review of terrorism risks involved with shipping waste across the nation to Nevada.

It's important to sustain a public dialogue about Yucca because congressional approval was a mere first step, said Ed Rothschild, a paid Democratic lobbyist who helped Nevada in its effort in the Senate fight.

People should remember that the Energy Department has a long history of spectacular failures, including the $11 billion Superconducting Supercollider, and the modernization of a nuclear fuel facility in Portsmouth, Ohio -- both massive-scale projects that were scrapped after billions had been invested, Rothschild said.

The public should re-awaken to the long list of reasons the Yucca project is similarly doomed, Rothschild said.

"To think that the DOE can manage (Yucca) and get NRC approval -- that's a (risky) bet," Rothschild said. The NRC's licensing process will feature public hearings that should draw large crowds of Yucca critics, Rothschild said.

"There are lots of opportunities to question what the DOE is doing," he said.

One avenue is federal court. Washington-based Public Citizen, which took a lead role in anti-Yucca efforts, along with several other groups, joined the state of Nevada in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets Yucca safety standards.

"Yucca still has 10 years to go and it will probably sink under its own weight," said Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen president. "It's a $58 billion project now, it'll probably be a $158 billion project in the not too distant future."

Local environmental groups also vow to keep Yucca near the top of their priority lists. Groups may file more lawsuits against the NRC as the licensing process heats up, said Grant Smith, an activist with Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, which has worked with Public Citizen on its EPA lawsuit.

"I'm sure that there will be (DOE) issues that contradict what the statutes say, which the NRC will ignore," Smith said.

Meanwhile this week, lobbyists on the other side of the Yucca issue said they too plan to sustain their own momentum, and call on Congress to provide adequate funding for the project each year, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. He shrugged off activists who plan to watchdog the NRC.

"The NRC is one of the most scrutinized agencies in the government," Singer said. "If that's what those groups intend to do, that's their business."