Crash near Yucca raises concerns

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

This week's crash of a fighter jet about 40 miles from Yucca Mountain raised concerns about the proposed nuclear waste repository Wednesday.

Joseph Ziegler of the Energy Department told a panel of scientists advising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Air Force officials had volunteered to establish a no-fly zone over the mountain.

In a Sept. 11 letter to key lawmakers, including House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Air Force officials warned that a Yucca repository could affect training and endanger sensitive operations.

Air Force officials argued that plans to haul waste through the Nevada Test and Training Range adjacent to the Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain, are "untenable." The A-10 crashed at the range.

The potential for an aircraft crashing into the repository site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been a controversial issue between the DOE and the NRC, Ziegler said.

The NRC has said that there is a "high risk" of such a crash either by commercial jetliners or military jets.

Ziegler said there were "no high risks" at Yucca Mountain in the Energy Department's view. The NRC, he said, defines risks differently.

Originally, the Energy Department estimated that there was a one in a million chance of an aircraft crash .

Ziegler said the probability of such a crash could be as low as one in 10,000.

"We are working with the Air Force on flight activities," Ziegler said, noting that the military is worried about transportation routes to the repository, not spent fuel and nuclear wastes stored on top of the mountain.

Both commercial and military jets fly within eight miles of the repository site, said Paul Harrington, an Energy Department engineer working on repository development.

The Air Force has plans to increase its training flights for fighter pilots who fly over parts of the Test Site, Harrington said. Since September 1992 the Test Site has ceased full-scale underground nuclear weapons experiments.

"The Air Force has been more active over the Nevada Test Site since testing ceased," Harrington said. "We have to go back and re-analyze the risks from those flights."

Steve Frishman, technical adviser to the Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state agency for Yucca Mountain oversight, said the Federal Aviation Administration has predicted an increase in both military and commercial flights near Yucca Mountain.

By 2020 there may be as many as one flight per minute near the repository, he said.