Panel discusses security issues for nuke waste

Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

An independent scientific panel reviewing Energy Department plans for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain urged federal officials to ask local emergency managers what their security concerns are over shipping spent reactor fuel.

But a lack of funding has stymied efforts to plan for transportation emergencies, the department's acting director of national transportation told the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, meeting Tuesday in Las Vegas.

"We haven't developed emergency plans yet," acting director Jeff Williams said.

The priority of the Yucca Mountain program is presenting a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2003, W. John Arthur III, deputy director for repository development, told the panel.

The Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Transportation have been reviewing security issues of shipping nuclear wastes since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Energy Department's transportation plans for moving nuclear waste to the repository have not progressed and Congress had cut its funding for planning shipments to Yucca Mountain since 1996.

"We don't have anybody knowledgeable on transportation issues right now," Margaret Chu, director of the Energy Department's radioactive management program, said.

While the Energy Department has been studying Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas for more than 20 years, it has yet to present final nationwide routes that would carry up to 77,000 tons of reactor fuel to a repository.

Still, Chu said, the first shipments of spent reactor fuel should begin in 2010 as scheduled.

By 2004 the department will try to begin soliciting shipping contractors and others necessary to move the wastes across the country without creating a large bureaucracy, she said.

The Energy Department asked for $590 million in 2003, Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson said.

However, the Senate slashed the request to $336 million and the House trimmed it to $527 million, Benson said. The funds are stalled in a gigantic omnibus bill being considered by Congress.

"If we get $430 million or less, something's got to give," Benson said.

That something could be delaying ongoing scientific work at the mountain or transportation issues, but licensing is the first priority, Arthur said. No decision has been made in specific program or personnel cuts.

Review board members told the Energy Department that large shipments of nuclear waste will pass through communities that never had electricity generated by nuclear power. Those residents, like Nevadans, need details such as how the government will monitor the highly radioactive wastes during shipment, how the loads are tracked and who monitors them.

Steve Frishman, representing Nevada officials who oppose the repository, said the project could be delayed because of funding shortages.

"They haven't done anything and they don't have the money," Frishman said.