News briefs for May 22, 2003

Thursday, May 22, 2003 | 9:28 a.m.

More Nellis airmen slated for Iraq

About 25 Nellis Air Force Base personnel are scheduled to soon deploy to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The airmen, members of the 757 Maintenance Squadron, will likely deploy sometime next week, Nellis officials said.

The squadron is responsible for maintaining aircraft, and the deployment brings the number of Nellis personnel deployed overseas to about 850.

Review board criticizes Yucca

The independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board said the Department of Energy's technical basis for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository remains "weak to moderate" in a report to Congress released Wednesday.

The report covers the board's activities in 2002.

The board's criticisms of the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain program are not new. Previous board reports have criticized the DOE's case for a license application, expected to be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December 2004.

The board said large uncertainties exist in how a waste package and the repository would perform at temperatures above the boiling point of water.

The board also said the Energy Department could improve its confidence in how the repository would perform by strengthening plans to shield the wastes at the repository, called "defense-in-depth."

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is an independent panel of scientists. The board was created by Congress in 1987 to oversee the work at Yucca Mountain, site of a proposed national nuclear waste repository.