NRC may delay its evaluation of Yucca

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may have to delay its evaluation of the Yucca Mountain project license application, Commissioner Edward McGaffigan said today.

McGaffigan said a delay may be necessary until an official decision is made on the radiation protection standards, which a federal appeals court earlier this month threw out.

Commission Chairman Nils Diaz said the agency's general counsel is still trying to determine the commission's responsibilities for evaluating the license in light of the recent court decision, but McGaffigan said a delay is possible.

The Energy Department has pledged to file its license application to build the Yucca Mountain project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by the end of the year and wants to open the proposed nuclear repository by 2010.

If the licensing request is delayed, it could push the timetable for Yucca Mountain back by several years.

The license application is based on a radiation protection standard. If the court ruling holds up, the department would have to wait until a new standard was set and would then have to defend its design against that standard.

The NRC is waiting for advice from its attorneys.

"We have asked the general counsel to consider the possibility that the application will be submitted and what are our options," Diaz said. "Those options have not been sorted out. ... We are waiting for a clear legal opinion."

Earlier this month the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the standard set by the Environmental Protection Agency that said the project needed to hold radiation for 10,000 years.

Now either an appeals court decision, legislative action by Congress or a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency will have to be in place before the commission can fully review the application, McGaffigan said.

An outcome may not be reached until at least 2007, he estimated, which would throw the project off track for its 2010 opening date.

Energy Department officials have said they still plan to submit the application this year. Energy Department officials were immediately unavailable to comment today.

McGaffigan said it is the department's call on what is wants to do with the license application.

McGaffigan doubted Congress would be able to pass any language changing the court's ruling this year, and added that the legal and rulemaking processes also take time.

The commission may take the license if the department sends it in December, but "the issue our staff will have to face is how much work to do on that once it is submitted," he said.

Some work could be done on chapters that do not involve the 10,000-year standard in question but time and cost related to evaluating the document will be an issue. Under federal law the commission had three years to evaluate the application with an optional additional year with Congress's approval.

McGaffigan said the commission may not start the clock until a final decision on the radiation standards is in place.

McGaffigan said the 2010 opening date for the Yucca Mountain project was not viable even before the federal court of appeals threw out a key environmental standard for the project. He said that date was based on an estimate from the first Bush administration on a 2000 submittal of the license application.

"From the date at which clarity emerges legally and statutorily, from that point it's 10 years (to open the site)," McGaffigan said. He said the 2012 to 2015 time frame is a conservative estimate to open the site.

Beyond the initial license to construct the repository and the related hearing, the department also needs a second license to accept waste, which will have a short hearing phase, McGaffigan said.