State to file sixth lawsuit against Yucca

Benjamin Grove

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

WASHINGTON -- The state of Nevada on June 4 plans to file its sixth lawsuit designed to kill Yucca Mountain, Nevada sources said.

The lawsuit will challenge the Department of Energy's final environmental impact statement, or EIS, for Yucca, said Joe Egan, the Washington-area lawyer hired by the state to mount legal challenges to the proposed nuclear waste repository. The suit will allege that the EIS does not meet federal law requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Developers and governmental agencies are required to complete an EIS when they propose a project in order to tell the public how it would affect the area.

But the Energy Department's EIS for Yucca doesn't come close to doing that, Egan said. That's because so many important details about the project will not be finalized for years, leaving the DOE to submit an EIS based on a vague concept, Egan said.

The lawsuit, which is not yet finalized, will focus on seven to 10 issues that the EIS could not address, Egan said. For instance, the DOE has not yet determined whether waste will be shipped mostly by truck or train, or how many barges might be used for possible waterway shipments.

The EIS also does not address the impact of moving waste from research reactors operating at universities, Egan said.

That information must be known to complete a legal EIS, Egan said.

Among other unanswered questions: Will Yucca have a "hot" or "cold" design? -- an issue determined by how closely waste containers are placed to each other. How much waste will be stored on the surface near Yucca before it is placed underground? And will Yucca be expanded once a federally mandated 77,000-ton limit is reached?

"This is a project that just hasn't been defined," Egan said.

The lawsuit also likely will assert that the EIS should have included a detailed analysis of the effects of a sabotage attack on a nuclear waste shipment bound for Yucca, Egan said.

The lawsuit will be filed in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Yucca legal challenges.

The state of Nevada has five other Yucca lawsuits pending, including three against the DOE that center on DOE rules for Yucca and water permits. The state is also suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Environmental Protection Agency over Yucca rules.

Officials are using an anti-Yucca fund that includes state and private money to pay for the lawsuits.

Las Vegas and Clark County jointly filed yet another suit against the DOE project in January, alleging that the project will do the area "immediate and irreparable harm" by decreasing property values, the tax base and population.