Schedule altered on Yucca questions

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, April 22, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department has adjusted its schedule on when it will submit answers to remaining technical questions about storing nuclear waste in Nevada to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, officials said Wednesday.

All of the 293 remaining technical questions on the proposed nuclear waste storage project at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, still will be submitted to the commission by August, but now more will come in July, later than planned.

The department has responded to 168 of the remaining technical questions known as key technical issues, and the commission has deemed 93 complete.

The commission will use the information when it reviews the Yucca Mountain project's license application. "Complete" does not mean the information is right or wrong but that the commission staff has enough information to draw a conclusion during the licensing review.

In March and April the department only submitted nine of the 43 answers it had promised for those months.

Now it plans to submit 44 answers to the commission in July as opposed to the 16 originally scheduled. All issues will be submitted to the commission by August as planned and the department still intends to submit the project's license application to the commission by December.

The department adjusted the schedule since some models and data had been updated that would have affected the remaining questions, said Donald Beckman, the manager in charge of answering the questions for Bechtel SAIC, the Yucca Mountain project contractor.

Timothy Gunter, of the department's Office of Repository Development, said a team will review the technical basis documents the department uses to justify how it reached its answers.

The 100-person team will review the technical basis documents, even those that are complete, and supporting information to make sure all of the information the commission will need is there.

The commission sent a letter to the department last week saying that the license review process could take longer than anticipated if the department did not improve how it was documenting its answers.