DOE under gun on Yucca questions

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Feb. 27, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not have enough time to review all of the answers the Energy Department plans to submit to the remaining technical question on the proposed Yucca Mountain Project before the license application is submitted at the end of the year.

The department plans to answer all 293 unresolved scientific questions on its proposed Yucca Mountain project by August and submit the site's license application to the commission by December.

So far the commission has deemed 90 of the original 293 completed, including three of some of the most important answers the Energy Department needed to provide, Gregory Hatchett, of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Division of Waste Management today the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste today.

"DOE may submit answers to staff before the license application, but that does not mean (NRC) staff will finish before," Hatchett said during the committee's meeting this morning, adding that commission officials will look at the license application to see if answers could be in there.

He did not return later calls asking for clarification.

Hatchett's comments did not indicate whether a delay in reviewing the Energy Department's answers would also push back the license application process.

Nevada has always argued that the questions need to be completed before the application could be turned in, Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said.

"It isn't a matter of just submitting them (answers)" Loux said. "They have to be reviewed and approved before the license application can even be submitted."

All of the data the department plans to use to support the license application must be in the electronic license support network by July 1, Loux said.

But the department has said in the past that the license application was not contingent on the closure of all 293 issues.

The commission has not received any information on 80 of remaining questions, and 123 are in various stages of review by the commission, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Twenty of the questions the NRC is reviewing are critical, and the Energy Department has not yet provided information on 18 of the key questions.

Hatchett said more answers under review have not been closed partly because of problems in the department's documentation.

"We can't make conclusions on documents that are not publicly available," Hatchett said. "It's a wait-and-see game. I'm confident DOE has done their work but they have not shown us how they have reached their conclusions."

Hatchett said the department's satellite office in Rockville, Md., close to the commission headquarters, will also help close more questions, but would not speculate how long it would take for those under review now to clear.

The office opened last week, said Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson.