New timeline being prepared for Yucca project

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, March 9, 2005 | 8:46 a.m.

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A new timeline for the Yucca Mountain project should be ready three to four months from now, a project official said Tuesday.

W. John Arthur, deputy director of the department's Office of Repository Development said the department is working on a new schedule that will lay out all the "critical decisions" on transportation planning, licensing, operations and other areas of the proposed nuclear waste repository in the next few months.

The department recently backed down from its proposed 2010 opening date after it missed its goal of handing in a license application at the end of last year while facing budget cuts and complicated regulation problems.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will ultimately decide if the Energy Department can build its proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Tunnels inside the mountain would store 77,00 tons of high-level nuclear waste from across the country.

Arthur said a new opening date really depends on when the Environmental Protection Agency would issue a new standard for the minimum length of time that Yucca will need to safely contain the radiation, the project's budget, and other variables, but it should be figured out by the summer.

"The clock really starts once the license application is submitted,," Arthur said at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's 17th annual Regulatory Information Conference taking place this week in Rockville, Md.

He said former Yucca Mountain project Chief Margaret Chu said a new opening date of 2012 was more probable.

"That date is still achievable," Arthur said.

Arthur said the department is evaluating all its regulatory options, and that it is on track to get its project documents loaded into a database, as required by law, in time to get a license application done by the end of the year.

The department anticipates the EPA will issue a new radiation standard this summer and will update the database with new documents once it submitted the application, Arthur said.

He emphasized though that he aims to have the license ready by the end of the year. The Energy Secretary decides when to actually send it to the commission.

Jack Strosnider, director of the commission's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, said the commission can accept an application but, under law, could not begin any review on it until six months after the department gets all of its documents into a database set up just for the project.

The department sent all its documents into the database last year, but based on complaints raised by Nevada's lawyers, an administrative court within the commission said it needed to do it again.

"It's DOE's call as to when they submit an application," Stronsider said.

Stronsider said if the department submits an application prior to a new radiation standard or getting its documents in place, "they need to make it very clear as to their bases for submitting the application. "

He pointed out though that there are some things that are independent of a new radiation standard the commission might be able to review even if a new standard is not set.

Meanwhile, J. Gary Lanthrum, director of the department's Office of National Transportation, which focuses on moving spent fuel from sites across the country to Nevada, said his office is still going through more 4,000 comments it received during scoping meetings on what to include in an environmental study on a proposed new rail line in Nevada. The department aims to build a 309-mile railroad through Caliente to Yucca Mountain to transport the spent nuclear fuel.

Lanthrum said the initial target of the spring it "slipping a little bit" because his office is still going through the comments and has to addresses all of the. He hopes to have the draft environmental impact statement finished by the summer.

Lanthrum also said no decision has been made on whether the department would being construction of the rail line before the commission would begin review of the repository license application.

Notably absent from this week's conference's panel on "Spent Fuel Management" were any representatives from Nevada.

Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, who has addressed the conference before, said he spoke with the conference organizers in December about someone from Nevada or anyone who disagrees with the plan participating on the panel. Loux said he was told the panel's focus was going to be more on private fuel storage and other waste issues not specific to Yucca Mountain.