State to feds: Stop secret meetings

Friday, Sept. 20, 2002 | 10:45 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and the director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Thursday demanded the federal government conduct all Yucca Mountain meetings in public.

Del Papa, in a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve, said, "The state of Nevada takes strong exception to a growing and apparently unlawful trend on the part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct private meetings with the Department of Energy," over Yucca Mountain and excluding the public and the state.

Director Bob Loux said the letter was a "shot across the bow that said, 'You (and the Energy Department) are getting pretty cozy here.' "

Nevada officials, in a letter to Margaret Chu, the Energy Department's Yucca project director, said the department should not use the excuse of national security to "avoid its duty of full disclosure to Nevada" of these meetings.

The Energy Department project aims to construct a first-of-its-kind national nuclear waste dump at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department must apply for a license from the regulatory commission to construct the repository.

As the department assembles the application over the next 15 months, and as the NRC reviews it -- a process that could take several years -- the two agencies inevitably exchange information. Those communications, especially when important decisions are reached, should be public, Nevada officials said.

Del Papa said it "has become obvious that DOE and NRC staffs are meeting, conferring and making agreements or commitments" to the pre-licensing activities for Yucca Mountain. These meetings are not noticed and Nevada and the public do not have an opportunity to attend, she said.

She said the two agencies have been talking about the design of the project, the quality assurance program, procedures to follow, a corrective action plan and work safety.

The Energy Department, said the attorney general, wishes "to shape the licensing proceedings to mask the inadequacies of the proposed repository site."

Del Papa said minutes must be maintained and should be provided to Nevada. She asked if the Energy Department or the regulatory commission had made any new commitments; why was no notice given of the meetings; why any commitments were not reduced to writing and made available to Nevada; and what sessions are scheduled in the future.

Rosetta Virgilio, a spokeswoman for the NRC, said NRC-Energy Department Yucca meetings are public and records are in fact made available, adding, "I am not aware of any other (secret) meetings that are going on."

An Energy Department spokesman was not available for comment.

Loux said that at two public meetings of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent review panel, in recent months, Chu has described decisions that were reached at meetings between the NRC and Energy Department.

"We're going, 'We don't know about these meetings, and we should be privy to them,' " Loux said.

Nevada lawmakers, who have long battled Yucca, agree.

"This serves as even more evidence of the insidious nature of this project,' Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "We've known for a long time that the NRC is in bed with the DOE and the nuclear power industry.

"How can the NRC keep a straight face when they lie to Nevadans about being an impartial, outside agency that will judge the Yucca Mountain project only on the scientific merits?"

"There is a pattern here of deceit and deception," said Michael O'Donovan, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev, siad there "is a pattern here of deceit and deception."

"Closed doors and secrecy will only breed corruption in the end," he said.

Sun reporter Benjamin Grove contributed to this story.