DOE expects to have waste transportation plan in a year

Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 | 9:41 a.m.

The Energy Department's chief scientist in charge of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository said the agency will have a national transportation plan ready in a year for shipping the expected 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

Once Congress approved Yucca Mountain as the repository site, Energy Department officials focused on preparing a licensing application due to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December 2004, said Margaret Chu, director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office.

"Since transportation activities have been deferred for years, DOE needs to develop and implement a national transportation program," Chu told the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board at a meeting Tuesday at the Alexis Park hotel.

Yucca Mountain opponents have criticized the department for failing to address nuclear waste shipments from commercial reactors in 39 states to Yucca.

Chu said that the Energy Department plans to begin accepting waste at Yucca Mountain in December 2010, although a final design for the repository is not ready.

Nevada has filed four lawsuits that could prove "fatal" to the repository plan, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency on Nuclear Projects.

Funding from Congress, which has been a target of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has hampered efforts to complete work on the repository's license or a transportation plan, Chu said. A House Appropriations bill asks for $524 million for 2003, but the Energy Department had asked for $527 million to help meet its goal, she said.

In a 10-hour hearing Tuesday, the review board with its new chairman Michael Corradini and four other new members heard criticism of the Energy Department's approach from a variety of scientists, who said more technical work needs to be done on the project.

Appointed by President Bush, Corradini replaced Jarod Cohon on the board. Corradini, listed as a nuclear expert by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's lobbying arm, said he would remove himself from the list if asked.

Energy Department scientists presented an array of data. They still have not determined why mold is growing in some of the alcoves where water tests are being conducted at the site, or how hot the repository could be, Mark Peters of Yucca contractor Bechtel SAIC said.

Tim McCartin of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said he did not speak for the commissioners. He said more information is needed about how radiation would be contained.

Robert Budnitz, who chaired a review panel on the Energy Department's seismic studies, called the department's technical concepts "confusing."

"A lot of discussion of what we heard today was fantasy," he said.