Scientist says new time frame needed for radiation standards

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Sept. 20, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Handling the federal court's decision on the Yucca Mountain project is more complex than simply plugging in a new time frame for the radiation protection standards, a scientist told a National Academy of Sciences board today.

Robert Fri said the agency has to deal with the time period of the radiation, where people are in relationship to the radiation and how the radiation travels.

Fri, who led the academy committee that created the technical standards almost a decade ago for nuclear waste storage planned at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, did not recommend what time frame should be used or how the Environmental Protection Agency should readdress the standard, but said his commitee used a different method than the agency did.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on July 9 that the EPA did not follow the law when it established a 10,000-year standard, largely because it did not accept the National Academy of Sciences recommendation of a far higher standard of about 300,000 years.

The court threw out the 10,000-year standard and said Congress must either change the law that required the EPA to follow the academy's recommendations or the EPA must create a new standard.

Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, said the agency is still evaluating exactly what it has to do next.

"We don't have a table of specific options at this point," Holmstead said. "We don't have a list of federal options.'

He said the agency has not ruled out going to Congress for help but right now it is not planning on doing that. Instead, the agency is looking at how it can respond to the court's order. He had no timeline for how long this would take and the court did not specify one.

Sam Fowler, a lawyer who works for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said just having the agency stick in a new year would give the impression of "remaking the pattern to fit the cloth."

Fowler said just changing the year and nothing else in the standard could create an unworkable standard and more questions need to be answered than just a new number of years.

"I think there are a number of potentially fatal problems facing the program at this point," said Fowler, who was not speaking on behalf of the committee. Fowler said the court's decision and the budget problems could have an effect on its progress.