State: Yucca finding ‘masks issue’

Ed Koch and Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Nevada officials say findings this week by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board that one form of corrosion at Yucca Mountain is "unlikely" masks the real issue that the site is just unsafe for nuclear waste.

"The overwhelming scientific evidence shows that Yucca Mountain is not safe," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today. "Deciding which type of corrosion is most dangerous will not change that underlying fact.

"The courts have determined that the government can't license the Yucca Mountain dump site now because it is a flawed, dangerous plan. We need to stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on this project."

The board this week presented its findings to the Energy Department, which oversees the project at the proposed site of the nation's nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Those findings, the board says, are based primarily on information provided by the Energy Department two months ago.

In a four-page letter to Energy Department official Margaret Chu, Wednesday, the board explained the corrosion it once feared would happen is unlikely during the 1,000-year period after the repository is closed.

The findings center on a single corrosive issue, calcium chloride-rich brines.

The conclusion is that it is "unlikely that dusts that accumulate on waste package surfaces during the preclosure period would contain significant amounts of calcium chloride ... Thus the board concludes that deliquescence-induced localized corrosion during the higher-temperature period of the thermal pulse (about 1,000 years after the repository closes) is unlikely."

But state officials say there are other types of corrosion that could occur and say the board missed the crux of the issue.

"While this new analysis would appear to address a single concern about how canisters might corrode and allow radioactive waste to leak, it does not change the fact that Yucca Mountain remains to be proven safe," Rep. Shelley Berkley said today. "Science has yet to demonstrate that the mountain's own geology can stop waste from leaking into water supplies and the recent ruling of a federal court means that (the) DOE (the Energy Department) will have to prove that Yucca can meet radiation standards stretching for 200,000 years or more."

Berkley said that "by no means is the safety question now settled" because of this one finding.

"New concerns are certain to arise as research continues," Berkley said.

Nevada has relied on its own research and the opinion of the board as another element in its argument against storing nuclear waste at Yucca. If the special metal canisters holding the waste corrode, radiation inside could leak out and work its way through the mountain to the groundwater below, the state fears.

"The board is relying on data provided by the DOE, which we contend is made up," Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects said today in response to the technical board's findings. "The state still maintains that no metal of any kind will last more than a couple hundred years because of local corrosion factors."

Loux said that many corrosive materials exist in the water in the tunnel at Yucca, including arsenic, mercury, fluoride and lead.

He said that tests have shown that lead particularly "is a killer" to nickel alloy 22, one of the metals to be used in the nuclear waste containers -- a metal proponents say will last thousands of years.

Loux, however, said the state has taken samples of the metal and under laboratory conditions has simulated Yucca Mountain conditions, including heat and humidity, and determined that nickel alloy 22 "fails very, very rapidly."

Yucca proponents say the addition of a titanium drip shield also would prevent corrosion. However, Loux said, tests by Nevada scientists and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have determined that fluoride in the water would breech that shield in 50 years.

Loux also says a titanium drip shield would add $8 billion of taxpayer money to the cost of the project.

Joe Egan, an attorney who represents Nevada on Yucca issues, said today that in its entirety the board's findings are "a tremendously helpful affirmation that supports our position that they (DOE) have not done their work."

"Throughout the letter (to Chu) the board says the DOE has a lot more homework to do," Egan says. "There is the one small technical issue that differs with Nevada (the corrosion finding), but overall the letter says we don't have enough here so, DOE, go back and do more work."

One of the arguments in the many lawsuits and legal papers Nevada has filed against the Yucca Mountain project is that the DOE did not do its job and complete tests before all other potential sites were scrapped and Yucca was rushed through as the only suitable site for the storage of nuclear waste.

Late last year, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board told the Energy Department it had concerns about waste canisters corroding because of moisture and a concoction of mineral deposits that would drip onto them.

The Energy Department held a meeting with the board in May outlining its science and plans for the project, which has now lead the board to believe corrosion -- at least in limited scope -- is not as serious a problem as once thought.

The board told Chu tests still need to be done, including some recommended by Nevada officials, and that there are still unanswered questions about what will happen inside the mountain over time.