Herrera leads anti-Yucca speakers at public hearing

Thursday, May 23, 2002 | 11:09 a.m.

Public hearing The public has another chance to comment to the NRC from 6:30 to 9 p.m. today at the Clark County Building Department, 4701 W. Russell Road.

More than 25 residents Wednesday used a Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearing designed to explain the process to license a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain to express their opposition to the plan.

Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, a Democrat running for the new 3rd Congressional District seat, led the parade of speakers, stating his "unequivocal opposition" to the proposed repository.

County studies show that if a repository is approved 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, economic impacts from property losses and visitors refusing to come will be in the billions, yet local comments were not considered, Herrera said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not expect to begin examining a request from the Department of Energy to build and open a repository at Yucca Mountain until December 2004, but the staff has written a 500-page plan on how it would review the request to bury 77,000 tons of commercial and defense nuclear wastes.

NRC officials scheduled the meetings to explain those plans, but they turned into a forum for opposition.

"I am utterly opposed to using Yucca Mountain as a nuclear garbage dump," Las Vegas resident Andy Harris said. "This is a life and death issue for those of us in Nevada."

Speakers said that the NRC and the courts were the last resort in the state's fight against a Yucca Mountain repository.

"The NRC is the last line of defense," said Dennis Bechtel, who retired last year as director of the county's nuclear waste division.

Janet Schlueter, NRC's chief of the high-level waste branch, tried to reassure the crowd that the commission is not biased toward a repository.

"Our sole goal is to protect public health and safety," she said.

The NRC can deny DOE's request, Schlueter said. In addition, it will require answers for all of the 293 scientific and technical issues mentioned in a December General Accounting Office report.

However, the NRC staff also outlined the commission's limits.

It does not have to consider worst-case scenarios, said Pat Mackin, a consulting scientist hired by the NRC. Instead, commissioners will decide the repository's fate on "reasonably conservative" risk estimates.

"There is no effective way to look at what could go wrong," Mackin said, because the repository has to contain the wastes for 10,000 years.

The NRC also won't consider cumulative or combined risks from radiation and chemical contamination at the repository, Mackin said. The Energy Department has already examined the issue, he said.

When it comes to securing highly radioactive waste from terrorism or sabotage, the NRC is reviewing its current rules, said the NRC's Janet Kotra. "The stuff is very dangerous. The public and workers have to be protected," she said.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NRC is examining its security plan for handling, storing and shipping nuclear materials. The NRC is considering full-scale tests of both transportation containers and those that would be buried inside Yucca Mountain, said Chet Posbusny, in charge of transportation risks.

If the commission's current rules do not adequately protect the public, including those for a Yucca Mountain repository, the NRC will revise them, NRC Project Manager Jeff Ciocco said.