Report urges feds to keep 10,000-year radiation standard

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Federal officials should keep the original 10,000-year radiation standard in place for the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump and should consider allowing a higher dose limit for the time frame beyond the 10,000 years, according to a report released Monday.

Factors such as climate change and human behavior become harder to predict over longer time frames, according to the report, so analysis for the new standard should change to reflect those uncertainties instead of just extending the compliance period, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Nevada objects to the institute's suggestions, and Bob Loux, head of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, will be sending the state's comments to the group outlining the state's concerns.

The Environmental Protection Agency is currently working on rewriting the radiation standard for the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Last year, a federal appeals court threw out the 10,000-year standard set by the agency in 2001 because it was not consistent with a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences, as required by law. The court ruling also threw out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing requirement that followed the radiation standard.

The Electric Power Research Institute, an energy and environmental research group that promotes the benefits of nuclear power, does not take issue with the court's ruling, but in its 132-page report released on Monday it outlines what it believes are the EPA's options for setting a standard for "very long time frames."

John Kessler, the Electric Power Research Institute's manager of its High Level Waste and Spent Fuel Management program said the report assumes Congress will not take action to change the court ruling, so the agency will have to follow the National Academy of Sciences' recommendation to set a standard up to "peak dose" or the time the most radiation would be released from the mountain or 1 million years, which ever comes first.

It is unclear exactly when the peak dose may occur, but there is general agreement that it would be hundreds of thousands of years in the future, Kessler said. The Electric Power Research Institute. advocates that the federal government keep the 10,000-year standard as it stands now and consider the uncertainties that exist when trying to measure things out beyond that time frame.

The institute recommended only using a "interglacial" and "glacial" climate change models to avoid speculating on climate change and human behaviors.

It also recommends a "two-tiered dose limit:" one level for the first 10,000 years and a higher one for after that time consistent with "the increased uncertainty." The Electric Power Research Institute. is not advocating a specific dose beyond the 15-millirem per year limit now, a little more than a chest X-ray, but the report says a 100-millirem per year dose would be "considered protective under all potential exposure situations."

"A good site should not be penalized for doing a good job," Kessler said.

The report says radiation doses occurring in the far distant future show the repository's geological and man-made design elements are working. Kessler said that measuring or predicting the peak dose it harder though, so the EPA needs to consider that while writing the standard.

Nevada's contingent opposing Yucca also questions whether consultants who worked on the report were predisposed toward their eventual conclusion because of a possible conflict of interest.

Kessler worked with contractors from Monitor Scientific, a technical consulting firm based in Denver on the report. According to the company's Website, the firm did analyses and design review for the Electric Power Research Institute report, and the company's researchers have also supported the Environmental Protection Agency in "developing the technical basis for the radiation protection regulation for Yucca Mountain."