U.S. legislators told DOE behind in Yucca licensing

Stephen Curran

Thursday, May 13, 2004 | 9:22 a.m.

The Energy Department is "a little behind" in its effort to complete a necessary license application for a proposed rail route to Yucca Mountain, a top agency official told a meeting of state legislators in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

John Arthur, the deputy director of the department's Las Vegas-based Office of Repository Development, estimated the agency had completed about 68 percent of the documents --of a total to be completed of 5,200 pages-- detailing safety procedures for the proposed 319-mile rail route to the nuclear waste dump.

Based on weighted averages of several categories, the agency expected the necessary documents to be at least three-quarters finished by now, he told a National Conference of State Legislatures working group meeting this week at the MGM Grand to examine the project.

The group, which includes legislators and staff members from all 50 states, advocates for state issues before Congress and federal agencies.

The department has until December to submit a complete application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Earl Easton, a senior transportation advisor for the NRC's spent fuel project office.

The NRC will then decide whether to grant, deny, or conditionally authorize the shipments, he said.

"Almost always we find something we don't like and want to clarify," Easton said of the public review process.

The process includes a series of Bureau of Land Management, Energy Department and NRC "scoping meetings" to gauge rural support for the project. Such meetings have been held in past weeks in Amargosa Valley, Caliente and Pahrump. A Las Vegas meeting is slated for May 17 at the Sawyer State Office Building.

Assemblyman Rod Sherer, R-Pahrump, whose district includes the proposed Yucca Mountain site, said the meetings did little to explain how the federal government plans to prepare Nevada's inadequate infrastructure for an influx of nuclear waste.

"They (the Energy Department) are doing these scoping meetings but they're not getting people the answers," he said. "There are some major questions involving infrastructure. They keep saying the license is a done deal but I don't think it is."

The Energy Department currently proposes spending an additional $186 million in 2005 to study transportation to the proposed site, a roughly three-fold increase above the 2004 budget. The total project is estimated at $880 million, Energy Department officials say.

Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, part of a bipartisan state committee formed to oppose the project, called it a "delicate balancing act" between economic interests and concerns about proximity to the proposed dump.

He cited a recent independent poll commissioned by the committee that found 75 percent of Nevadans "strongly oppose" the project while 65 percent would rather fight it than negotiate for benefits for the state's economically depressed counties.

"It's hard to believe that after 20 years (since the project first surfaced) we should have to tell you (the federal government) how we feel," he told the convention. "We are stridently opposed."

Assemblyman William Horne, D-Clark County, went a step further, describing the selection of Nevada as the site "arbitrary and unfair." Horne, an attorney, helped launch six separate lawsuits against federal agencies he said were pushing the project.

A Federal Court of Appeals judge in January consolidated the suits, which target the Energy Department, the NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency. According to the suit, the agencies did not adequately prepare for the full life of the nuclear material or for future population growth in rural Nevada.

A complete set of rulings is expected in June, Horne said.

"These are not mere ploys to bolster the 'Not in my back yard' argument," he said. "All Nevada asks is that the decision be made on sound science, not political expediency."

And, despite the likelihood that the Yucca project will go forward, the state will continue to fight in the courts, McGinness said.

"Except for the outright termination of the Yucca Mountain project, which I don't think anyone here (at the meeting) thinks will happen, we will continue with our legal challenges."