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StumbleYucca father changes his tune
Ex-senator says site’s designation as temporary might have won support
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.
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The lawmaker perhaps most responsible for turning Yucca Mountain into the nation’s proposed nuclear waste dump said Tuesday the politically opposed project should never have been billed as a place to hold waste indefinitely.
Former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston says the waste repository might have won more public support in Nevada had it been designed as a temporary facility rather than the one now being planned to hold waste for up to 1 million years.
Instead, 20 years later, the plan to entomb highly radioactive nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas is hopelessly stalled in a protracted legal battle, as well as in the courtroom of public opinion.
“I think it should have been designed differently,” Johnston told a group of nuclear waste haulers Tuesday in Washington, D.C. “I knew we’d run into the kind of problems that we have — where you can’t absolutely prove with certainty what’s going to happen in 10,000 or 100,000 years.”
“The opportunity to bring lawsuits and spread uncertainty about what happens ... years from now is too great,” he added in an interview. “And that is exactly what has happened.”
Johnston’s comments come just weeks before the Energy Department is expected to deliver its long-awaited application to license the site. The Energy Department will try to convince federal regulators, and the public, that the site can safely hold nuclear waste for the unforeseeable future.
The former Louisiana senator’s renewed interest in a temporary holding facility mirrors increased efforts in the nuclear industry to seek alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main trade group, has been quietly chatting with small, primarily rural communities to gauge their interest in hosting a temporary waste facility.
Neither Johnston, now a consultant in Washington, D.C., nor representatives from the nuclear industry will admit that Yucca Mountain is dead, as Nevada’s lawmakers often claim.
But they would like to have a backup plan for, say, the next few decades until Yucca Mountain opens.
The latest estimates from the Energy Department are that Yucca could start accepting waste by 2020. The department has spent $9 billion on the site, which was supposed to open in 1998.
Bob Loux, who leads the state’s efforts to fight Yucca Mountain, said the “mind-set of people like Johnston and the industry has all changed. They all realize now it was a huge mistake” to try to force the waste dump on Nevada.
Twenty years ago Johnston, a powerful Democratic committee chairman, led the drive for a permanent waste repository.
But Johnston also knew that trying to convince the public that the mountain could safely hold the waste for almost an eternity would be a tough sell.
Originally, the legislation included plans for what is called “monitored retrievable storage” — what some have called glorified loading docks, where waste could be monitored and retrieved if toxins began polluting the land or water, or if technological advances allowed for it to be recycled, as scientists are trying to do.
But lawmakers from the proposed temporary sites, especially Tennessee, protested, saying temporary would become permanent. No one wanted nuclear waste in his back yard.
Johnston now says that perhaps the time has come to reconsider temporary sites — even at Yucca Mountain.
“Perhaps we ought to go back to MRS,” he told the nuclear waste haulers, using the initials for monitored retrievable storage. “Yucca Mountain is a great place for MRS.”
However, it’s hard to believe Nevada, which has fought becoming a permanent waste site, would support being a temporary one.
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How did this guy become a senator? Hands down this guy is an oxymoron.
He pushes for the multi billion project to get through but now says he knew..he knew "there are going to be a problems". Did I hear that right? You have judgement issues and credibility issues. You owe the rate payers money for spending billions of dollars that you know from the beginning its not going to work.
Another oxymoron."If We call it temporary it may work"? Call it whatever you want, the politics and the state of Nevada's opposition will be just the same. Senator, you dont make any sense at all.
If I were you I would just keep my mouth shut.
Senator,
What part of third most active state don't you understand. You would not put a temporary nuclear waste repository in California nor would you think about making it permanent. You probably thought that the "hicks" in the desert wouldn't mind. Do you think the difference between California and Nevada is more than a political line in the desert? The idea putting it in Yucca Mt. was a bad one, scientifically and politically. I am proud of the people of Nevada for saying, "No" to a southern politician. If you believe it is safe, put it in your backyard and leave us alone.
I think states that use nuclear power need to prove that they have a "safe" place to store it in their state or look into an alternative form of power.
I feel that congratulations are in order for Senator Johnston to admit his reservations about the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a permanent repository. He has always favored Monitored Retrievable Storage but was not able to convince enough other members of congress of this approach.
He also did not approve of Congress designating Yucca Mountain as the sole site to be studied for a geological repository. He felt that the Department of Energy should make the selection from among the three finalist sites: Deaf Smith County,Texas, Hanford, WA and Yucca Mountain,NV although some amendments approved by him and congress structured the situation so that only Yucca Mountain qualified.