Yucca in need of repair after nine years

Benjamin Grove

Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006 | 12:34 p.m.

WASHINGTON - Yucca Mountain research facilities - from ground supports to railroad tracks - need repairs after just nine years of use, leaving critics wondering how the Energy Department could store nuclear waste there for thousands of years.

As part of a $544 million Yucca budget proposal for 2007, Energy Department officials this week asked Congress for money for repairs at Yucca. That included $9 million to restore the 5-mile, nine-year-old, U-shaped exploratory tunnel where researchers have been studying the mountain, department officials said.

The work includes planned improvements to a 6-foot wide ventilation shaft that runs the length of the tunnel. The department also wants to buy fire detection and alarm systems, which had never been installed in the tunnel.

The $9 million request also includes grouting work on aging ground supports in the tunnel, as well as work to shore up the rail car system that ferries workers and visitors in and out. Rail cars that creep at top speeds of 10 mph have gone off the tracks because the rails are not stable, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said. No one has been injured in the derailments, he said.

Yucca managers also aim to upgrade the Yucca lighting system and level a south portal ramp.

"Everything in there is old," Benson said. "This is a safety issue."

Other work plans reflect the department's confidence that Yucca is a permanent government project, despite critics who doubt the repository will ever be licensed, much less constructed.

The Yucca budget proposal includes a $21 million request to replace shabby single-wide trailers at Yucca's north portal with permanent structures. The new buildings would include a new operations center, a craft shop, a warehouse, and a fueling station.

A separate budget request - Benson could not say how much exactly - has been made for a second year of work on a fire station.

The next nearest station is 45 minutes away in Mercury, Benson said.

Benson again stressed that the new facilities were needed for the safety of Yucca workers.

Yucca critics have long argued that the proposed $60 billion repository could not safely isolate high-level nuclear waste and prevent it from seeping into the environment. Yucca foes question how the government plans to maintain what would be a complex system of tunnels under the mountain.

"Yucca Mountain isn't tunnels - it's a mine," longtime Yucca critic Sally Devlin said. "Mines fall apart. It's damp. It's rock. There's nothing they can do to support it forever. And they're going to put this hot stuff in there - are they nuts?"

Outspoken Yucca critic Peggy Maze Johnson last visited Yucca two years ago and doesn't plan to return soon.

"When you look up and see loose rock being held up by chicken wire - absolutely not did I feel safe in there," she said.

The department has been studying Yucca Mountain, roughly 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for years. Officials have said they plan to open it by 2012 as a burial ground for the nation's most radioactive waste, although critics say that is unlikely and predict it may never open.

Before construction could start on the repository's underground tunnels, the department must first obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which could take years.

Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com.