Yucca Project director Chu disputes corrosion conclusions

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department disagrees with an independent panel's recent conclusions about corrosion inside its planned nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, saying all the information has not been reviewed.

Last week, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board sent a letter to the department outlining concerns about possible corrosion of metal inside the storage site set to hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"I am deeply disappointed by the premature release of the letter's contents," wrote Margaret Chu, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management that oversees the Yucca Project in a letter to sent Board Chairman Michael Corradini on Monday. "I do not agree that the data cited by the Board support such definitive conclusions."

Chu said she had concerns that statements in the letter saying that crevice corrosion is "likely to initiate" and that "the data in hand (indicating) that localized corrosion is likely" were taken out of context from the Board's data expected to be issued a a later date.

"The Board's conclusions did not acknowledge the dependence of those results on the existence of extreme and unlikely environmental conditions, nor did the letter say where the Board believes that such conditions are likely to occur," Chu wrote. "The outcome is an incorrect implication that the data show that localized corrosion and waste package perforation are 'likely' to' or even 'will' occur."

But Chu ended the letter saying she appreciated that the Board's letter "relates to the thermal operating conditions of the repository, and not to the ability to dispose of waste safely at Yucca Mountain."

She also assured the board that the department "will not dismiss the Board's corrosion concerns" as part of the total performance assessment, as advised in the board's letter but added that the assessment is required by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Board has no specific date on when the corresponding report to the letter will be released, according to a staff member. Members are putting the finishing touches on it now but it still needs further review.

Nevada's Yucca Mountain attorney in Washington, Joe Egan, said, "This is a very defensive letter and not characteristic of Margaret Chu at all."

"My view is that they are running scared," he said. "This project is unraveling at the seams."

Egan said Nevada's own studies have confirmed that corrosion will take place in a hot or cold repository design.

He disagreed with her conclusion that the board's findings do not affect the overall safety of waste disposal at the mountain.

"We don't think that is the case at all. This dramatically calls into question the safety of the repository," Egan said, adding that the board never said a cold repository would be safer.