Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency's change in its radiation protection standard, announced this morning, is shocking and outrageous, members of Nevada's team opposing the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump said.
The EPA is keeping the 10,000-year radiation protection standard for the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, while creating a different exposure limit after 10,000 years, for up to 1 million years.
One part of the new proposed standard has a 15 millirem radiation exposure for up to 10,000 years, the same limit a federal court threw out last year. Another part of the standard limits exposure to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The proposed standards "limit the maximum radiation from the facility so that people living close to Yucca Mountain for a lifetime during the 1 million-year time frame will not receive total radiation any higher than natural levels people currently live with in other areas of the country."
Joe Egan, a lawyer who represents Nevada on Yucca issues, said he was shocked by the new numbers.
"That is far more outrageous than anything we even expected," Egan said. "If more than 15 millirems is harmful now, it is going to be equally harmful 50,000 years from now. People aren't just going to develop an immunity to radiation."
Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob Loux said the new standard was "outrageous" because 350 millirem is so high.
EPA spokesman John Millett said the 350 millirem standard was an appropriate number given the uncertainties of calculating radiation standards so far into the future.
Other Nevada officials initially withheld comments. They said they wanted a chance to examine the EPA's proposal.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the state must "have the opportunity to review" the proposed standard to see "if it meets scientific muster."
He noted the EPA originally said the 10,000 years was a safe standard, but a federal appeals court found it violated the law. Gov. Kenny Guinn is expected to issue a statement later today about the EPA announcement.
Egan said it will be up to Sandoval to decide what legal option to pursue, but he would not be suprised if more litigation came out of this.
Egan said the proposed standards are worse than those suggested in a study done by the Electric Power Research Institute earlier this year. The state strongly objected to the study.
EPRI is an energy and environmental research group that promotes the benefits of nuclear power. Its study advocated 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.
It recommended a "two-tiered dose limit," which means one level for the first 10,000 years and a higher one for after that time consistent with "the increased uncertainty." It did not recommend 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."
Egan said the 100-millirem recommendation was bad enough. The proposed standard announced today is a "lawyer's dream."
"This is a total abdication of science and the law," Egan said.
A federal appeals court said last year that the 10,000-year time period previously established by the agency did not follow the law. That ruling threw the proposed nuclear waste dump off schedule until a new standard could be established. The court said the earlier standard was not "based upon and consistent with" a National Academy of Sciences recommendation. Congress wanted the standard to follow what a panel of the academy's experts wanted.
The EPA originally set a 10,000-year radiation standard for Yucca in 2001. Under that standard, the department would have to prove people would not be exposed to more than 15 millirems of radiation, a little more than a chest X-ray, each year for 10,000 years.
The National Academy of Sciences said it would be better to go to "peak dose" when the radiation levels would be at their highest. This could come 100,000 years into the future or more.
Now that the proposed standard is complete, it will have to go through a public comment period before becoming final. EPA will have to evaluate the comments and can make changes before implementing the final standard.
Rod McCullum, senior project manager for waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, could not comment specifically on what EPA proposed, but said he had always believed a two-tiered standard was a "sound, scientific approach."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson Monday reminding him of a promised public hearing in Las Vegas once the agency issues the rule. The senators also want the agency to hold hearings in Reno and Amargosa Valley and want a public comment period of no less than 180 days.
"Because of the enormity, time span and risk of the proposed project, any standard must err on the side of caution in order to guarantee the protection of public health and the environment for hundreds of thousands of years," the senators wrote.
Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said the senators got EPA to agree to hearings during talks on Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell's confirmation hearing. She said the office had heard the proposal would be coming out in the next two weeks, so they wanted to make sure a formal request for the meetings had been sent.
In May, the agency said it would put finish the proposed new standard by September.
Peggy Maze Johnson, director of Nevada-based Citizen Alert, and Judy Treichel of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force met with EPA officials a few weeks ago to discuss how to inform the public about the new standard, they said.
Johnson said she asked for details about public protection and the compliance period as they relate to the new proposed standard, but the EPA people she met with "sidestepped" her questions.
The new EPA standard is what Johnson feared, she said. She and many other Yucca critics objected to a two-tiered standard.
"We don't believe that it's safe,' she said.
Treichel said that last time opponents gave comments on a radiation standard, they wanted to see "zero exposure forever" but instead saw 15 millirem for 10,000 years.
"I am not sure if this would be any different now," Triechel said.
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