NRC to review Yucca data during close-door meetings

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 9:33 a.m.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is beginning a technical review of Energy Department information gathered on a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, but state and county officials and the public aren't invited to the review.

Nevada and Clark County officials have protested the closed-door meetings, set for next week starting Monday at an undisclosed location.

The NRC staff will begin to look at the volumes of technical information gathered in the past 20 years at Yucca Mountain in case the Department of Energy submits a license for building a repository in December 2004, Thomas Matula, a NRC senior engineer, said in a Nov. 4 memorandum.

The NRC does not have time to revise its guidelines for public participation now, but may review them in the future, Matula said. A decision on any changes allowing observers into the meetings could be issued in early 2004, he said.

Steve Frishman, technical adviser for the Nevada Agency on Nuclear Projects, said that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ignoring its own guidelines set in 1993 by shutting observers out of the review.

"It looks as if, first of all, they are ignoring the standard of openness," Frishman said Thursday.

Although the NRC is doing nothing illegal, Frishman said, closing the technical review makes people less confident in the process.

"It borders on malfeasance," Frishman told Matula and others in Las Vegas on Thursday.

The Clark County Nuclear Waste Division also protested the closed-door meetings.