Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003 | 9:47 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Whether reports this week of possible corrosion in containers proposed for use at Yucca Mountain change the Energy Department's approach to the project will be up to the department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is charged with licensing the planned high-level nuclear waste dump.
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent government board set up to advise Congress on Yucca Mountain matters, sent a letter to Margaret Chu on Tuesday outlining its concerns about possible corrosion inside the federal nuclear waste repository planned at Yucca, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It said that corrosion could perforate the waste containers and release radioactivity into the environment.
The board previously noted its concerns about the same subject in a June letter to Chu, the director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Chu sent the board a response to that letter on Oct. 10 saying, among other things, that the department's overall project assessment would be used to conduct additional sensitivity analyses for corrosion.
But in their letter sent Tuesday, the board members said that they believe "the total system performance assessment should not be used to dismiss these corrosion concerns."
Board members said the waste packages as currently designed have many chances for corrosion. If these packages corrode and eventually break, the fear is radiation would leak out of the containers and even out of the mountain, which could make people sick.
"The board believes that the high temperatures of the current design and operation will result in perforation of the waste packages, with possible release of radionuclides," the board wrote.
The 10-member board told Chu that the research by the Energy Department and the NRC's research on corrosion "are consistent in that both sets of data cast doubt on the extent to which the waste package will be an effective barrier under the repository conditions that have been presented to the board."
"We know that the department's decision-making process must take into account not only technical and scientific factors but also many others," the board wrote. "Nevertheless, because of the seriousness of these corrosion concerns, we strongly urge you to reexamine the current repository design and proposed operation."
Washington lawyer Joe Egan said the report should carry a lot of weight with the Energy Department, but he predicted it will not.
"The DOE does not pay a lot of attention to the (board)," Egan said.
In January 2002 the board characterized the Energy Department's technical analysis of the project as "weak to moderate" but the department went ahead with its site recommendation the following month.
Egan, who will present Nevada's cases against the site in federal court in January, said the new findings will not affect those cases. He said the state can't do much with the information in the upcoming cases because those lawsuits relate to decisions made before the site was recommended and approved by Congress.
Egan noted, however, that it is going to be impossible to ignore these findings during administrative law proceedings for the license approval at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
David Cherry, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the board's letter basically rebukes the Energy Department's research on corrosion. He and other staff members were told more about the letter Tuesday.
Cherry said Berkley circulated a letter to other lawmakers on Tuesday highlighting the issue.
"We're trying to fight back that tide of opinion when the president approved and Congress overrode the state's veto of the site that somehow Yucca Mountain is safe and a done deal," Cherry said.
He said the letter may get the science debate back on the table. If it did, that debate could prove the site never really was suitable to serve as federal storage container for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, Cherry said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons' staff members are scheduling a briefing, and Rep. Jon Porter, also R-Nev., has been consulting with the attorney general's office on what to do next, aides said.
Steve Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-Yucca nuclear industry group said he was not worried about the report.
"They're doing what they are supposed to be doing," Kraft said. "That's what they are there for."
Kraft said he would like to see the documentation that supports the board's conclusions.
The board promised Chu a detailed report "soon" on its technical basis for the corrosion problems and other concerns in the letter but did not specify a date.
Energy Department officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but their spokesman, Joe Davis, said Tuesday that the department is leaving its design options open.
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