Editorial: Another safety gaffe at Yucca Mountain

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 9:12 a.m.

The federal government has always had a cavalier attitude toward safely burying high-level nuclear waste. That's what led to the choice of Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada as the burial site. The government, for example, never cared that Yucca Mountain was in an earthquake zone. Now we're learning it doesn't believe the mountain's structural integrity is important.

All along, the supports for the tunnels that have been dug underneath the mountain have been viewed as critical. A tunnel collapse could trigger rock falls, which could perforate the drip shields and casks containing the deadly waste. But the status of the supports changed this past July, as confirmed by a memo reviewed by this newspaper. The memo was written in October by two inspectors for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It said the Energy Department and site construction managers concluded that the supports had been "inappropriately classified as important to safety or waste isolation." So they were removed as prime factors to be considered in deciding the safety of Yucca Mountain.

Earlier this year a federal court ruled that the Energy Department, for the past decade, had been building Yucca Mountain to the wrong radiation standard. It was building it to be safe for 10,000 years as opposed to several hundred thousand years. But without regarding the tunnel supports as important, it's logical to ask how the mountain could ever be regarded as safe even in our lifetimes.

If Yucca Mountain ever opens, it will be because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed it. We just hope they remember this memo when their decision is at hand.