Uncertainty surrounds deadline for Yucca application

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 9:26 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The only thing certain about the Yucca Mountain project is a lot of uncertainty, officials from the department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday.

With six weeks to go until the end of the year, there's a complete draft of the license application for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but there is no clear answer as to whether the Energy Department will meet its self-imposed deadline of getting a final version to the commission before 2005.

Questions about the project's budget, documentation rules and licensing requirements remain and the department is still meeting with its lawyers on what to do next, Joseph Ziegler, director of project's license application and strategy office, said at a meeting of the commission's Advisory Commission on Nuclear Waste Tuesday.

Ziegler said he needed to "dodge" a question on the project's schedule due to all the surrounding circumstances.

"There are a lot of things that have happened over the past several months," Ziegler said. "I don't have an answer."

Congress's extension on the 2004 budget expires Saturday leaving the department's funding for the project in limbo. Even if it stays at the $577 million level it received for the 2004 fiscal year, it would be less than the $880 million the department wanted for 2005 and money would most likely have to be reshuffled. Ziegler did not know how it would be reallocated and the Yucca Mountain Project press office will not comment until Congress takes action on the matter.

For most of the year the department has insisted it would get the application to the commission by the end of the year, but questions arose after the July ruling by the appeals court that threw out a key radiation protection standard. A commission board also said the project's documents were not in order.

Department spokesman Joe Davis will not answer questions about when the application might be done. He refers to earlier statements that the department is still evaluating its next steps.

There is no specific date the department is working toward to make its decision on what it will do with the application, he said. There is also no clear answer as to the department's progress in getting more documents to the commission for the License Support Network, a database of material used to support the fact in the application. But Ziegler said so far the application is fine.

"I think it's a pretty good application," although it is still being reviewed by management, Ziegler said.

He noted that all 293 key technical issues agreements, or requests for additional scientific data on specific portions of the project, have been answered and the commission has deemed 124 closed. Closed does not mean the information is right or wrong but that enough data exists to make that determination. Of the remaining issues, about 30 are considered high priority, said C. William Reamer, director of the commission's High Level Waste Repository Safety Division.

Reamer said the commission is interested in the department's schedule and its also waiting to see what the EPA does to create a new standard and what the department decides to do with the application

He said the commission is aware that the court's ruling shot a hole in the standard and the licensing rule. If the department chooses to submit a license application before a new standard is in place, he expects it will include an explanation from the department as to how the commission can review it.

There is to be a meeting on Monday involving Reamer and other commission staff, and Margaret Chu, the department's assistant secretary that oversees the project.