Tougher Yucca rules requested

Thursday, Sept. 5, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

Seven environmental and public interest groups suing the federal government over ground water radiation standards for a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository asked the court on Wednesday to strengthen a rule on how to measure contamination from the dump.

The request was part of a reply brief filed jointly with the state of Nevada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The proposed high-level nuclear waste repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would sit atop an underground aquifer that area residents 12 to 20 miles away rely on for drinking water, the legal notice said.

A primary issue is the distance from the proposed repository that the radiation standards would be enforced. The EPA can set a boundary within which there would be no limit on radiation contamination.

In its final rule, the agency extended the boundary from three miles from the repository to more than 11 miles.

In a response filed in August, the EPA said its congressional mandate to establish a standard for radiation protection that applied only to Yucca Mountain gave it the right to weaken the rule as it did.

The groups replied that EPA's action undermines the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

While the EPA's Yucca Mountain rule assumes the repository would leak, it allows the Energy Department to rely on dilution of radiated ground water with unpolluted ground water to meet national standards, attorney Geoff Fettus of the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

"The Yucca Mountain 'house of cards' rests on a regulatory structure that has been ridiculously weakened by the Bush administration," said Lisa Gue, senior energy analyst with Public Citizen, another petitioner.

The Energy Department's plan to turn Yucca Mountain into the nation's nuclear waste repository was approved by Congress in July. The department must now apply for a license to build and operate a waste dump from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The licensing process will assess projected compliance with the EPA radiation limit.