Sandoval seeks help in Yucca Mountain fight

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005 | 9:21 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Brian Sandoval is seeking help from attorneys general in 10 other states in the fight against the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain.

Sandoval on Tuesday sent letters urging them to oppose the new radiation standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. He said the new standard would set a "dangerous precedent for the relaxation of all radiation protection standards for Department of Energy sites everywhere." He is asking the other attorneys general to write the EPA opposing the proposed standard before the deadline of Oct. 21.

The EPA earlier this month set a two-tier standard for radiation. One tier sets a standard of up to 10,000 years at 15 millirems, equivalent to a chest X-ray. Each year a person living near the site would not be subject to more than 15 millirems.

The agency set the standard at 350 millirems for 10,000 years to 1 million years.

"Despite the fact that EPA previously determined that citizens should be exposed to no more than 15 millirems per year, the new standard would permit exposures of between 350 and 1,050 millirems per year," Sandoval wrote.

"This amounts to the least stringent radiation protection standard in the world by far."

He said the DOE has sought to loosen its nuclear cleanup standards for sites in other states from exposure levels of 25 millirems per year to 100 millirems and some states are considering suit. "The new standard is based on EPA's unstudied view that it is appropriate to expose un-consenting local populations to high levels of radiation so long as they do not exceed the highest levels of natural background radiation tolerated in the most radiation-prone states, such as Colorado." The letter went to attorneys general in Idaho, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio and New York.

Sandoval said those attorneys general were singled out because each have a Department of Energy facility in their state.