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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
What’s the rush?
There was no need to fast track the Energy Department’s Yucca Mountain application
Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.
We believe the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acted prematurely Monday when it agreed to consider the Energy Department’s application to build a permanent dump for the nation’s high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The department has not sufficiently addressed numerous scientific questions related to potential radiation exposure that could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of Nevadans and tourists.
The department hasn’t fully explained how the proposed dump site could withstand earthquakes, water infiltration or other acts of nature that could destabilize the mountain. The department also hasn’t offered sufficient proof that the nation’s rail system is capable of safely transporting nuclear waste through major metropolitan areas. Why not keep the waste where it is safely stored now instead of rushing through the application?
“We know this application is incomplete given the clear lack of a radiation standard to safeguard lives and our environment,” Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a statement. “That alone should have stopped the NRC from rubber-stamping a shoddy license application that raises more questions than it answers.”
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., correctly pointed out in a separate statement, Nevada now has an estimated four years to persuade the commission to reject the Energy Department request for a license to build the dump. “I am confident the commissioners will see the same bad information and evidence of mismanagement Nevadans already have and will reject the Energy Department’s plan to make Nevada the nation’s nuclear dumping ground,” Reid said.
We are now in the home stretch. Let down by the Bush administration and the majority of Congress, which failed to consider sound science in advocating the dump, Nevada must defend itself from this obvious public health hazard.
If ever Nevadans needed to mobilize on an issue, we can think of no better one than Yucca Mountain. We can be thankful the opposition to the dump has bipartisan support in this state. We should take advantage of that unity to let the commission hear our voices of opposition loud and clear.
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The LV Sun says "If ever Nevadans needed to mobilize on an issue, we can think of no better one than Yucca Mountain. We can be thankful the opposition to the dump has bipartisan support in this state."
Fortunately there are bipartisan Nevadans out there that are willing to allow the science to determine the outcome. Even Obama has stopped running those fear mongering ads.
With the LA docketed for review, Opponents, if they permit an adjudication their positions on technical facts of the program, have should have nothing to fear from a quality review process.
The LA process continues to establish the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site, and is based on the science of the five supporting national labs and the USGS.
Obama' idea to withdraw the application is a false promise.
Is Obama really smarter than the five national labs, the USGS, and the NRC to make a decision to stop the project?
Stopping Yucca is not a political decision but a legal and technical decision as played out by interveners, the NRC, the five supporting national labs, and the USGS.
Obama has a dilemma with the false promise he is making to Nevada and Senator Reid with regards to Yucca (to garner five electoral votes. NV Rep. Shelly Berkley let the cat out of the bag when she in a seven minute "assurance" phone call was pleased to note that Obama in Berkley's words (LV R-J 6-21-2008) said "He didn't know how he would stop it."
The LV Sun says "We are now in the home stretch. Let down by the Bush administration and the majority of Congress, which failed to consider sound science in advocating the dump."
Don't forget the leadership that Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson provided to get the project to this point. They dug the tunnel in Yucca Mountain in 1997.
The point was made in the R-J on 1-17-2008, that Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson held 21 formal draft EIS hearings (9 in Nevada) in 1999 and 2000, to establish that danger from transportation of nuclear waste is less then such hazardous materials as chorine and propane. This has been a long closed issue, but still raised by Nevada even though they will not do anything about chlorine tankers running by the Vegas Strip.
Did anyone read the recent article about the Southwest Desert Oasis High School located by the railroad track with daily passings of chlorine and propane tankers? What protection are they provided?
If Nevada representatives would demand similar protection for Chlorine tankers as will be in place for SNF such as dedicate trains, exclusion zones, evacuation plans, GPS locators, armed guards (to protect from terrorist with TOW missiles), track and signal inspects, alerts to local officials of the location of hazardous materials, trained emergency responders then we could be less concerned about the potential Bhopal like deaths from a toxic laden tankers of 90,000 people.
Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson had engaged in preparing a positive the Site Recommendation right before they left office.
Even Harry Reid has finally admitted that the process has to go on as dictated by the NWPA.
As noted by the LV Sun, Harry Reid,correctly pointed out in a statement, Nevada now has an estimated four years to persuade the NRC commission to reject the Energy Department request for a license to build the dump.
As a page counter you need to add the referenced supporting technical documents which you have not read.
A License Application is just a "summary report" of the technical body of work. Happy reading.
The NRC has looked at this and determined that the LA has the information for a review, and can be docketed.
I am willing for the NRC to take four years to independantly evaluate the science of the five supporting national labs and the USGS, and stand by the NRC decision. The LV Sun will not be my source of technical expertise.
What protection should Desert Oasis High School be provided from chlorine and propane tankers?
Check tth past record for proof that the nation’s rail system is capable of safely transporting SNF through major metropolitan areas.
The point was made in the R-J on 1-17-2008, that Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson held 21 formal draft EIS hearings (9 in Nevada) in 1999 and 2000, to establish that danger from transportation of nuclear waste is less then such hazardous materials as chorine and propane.
Bill Clinton made this a long closed issue, but still raised by Nevada even though they will not do anything about chlorine tankers running by the Vegas Strip.
Did Limestone read the recent article about the Southwest Desert Oasis High School located by the railroad track with daily passings of chlorine and propane tankers?
DOE has no plans to bring SNF through LV on rail.
"Fast track?" By what standard do you consider that the development of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain is on a fast track?
Congress set the goal in 1982 of initial emplacement in a repository beginning in 1998 and required all nuclear reactor owners to enter into contracts based on that with the federal government (DOE) and to begin fee payments for the disposal by June 1983. The payments begun on time and continue to this day, even though the earliest repository opening is 2017 and more likely 2020.
At one point, following the 2002 approval of the site by Congress, DOE had said the license application would be submitted by 2004, then 2005 and finally June 2008.
Three or even four years to review this important license, with all of its complexities is a long time. A freshman entering this fall may expect to graduate before the NRC completes this "fast-tracked" license review.
Boco and Future2012: I applaud your comments!!!
This "Sun Editorial" is just another emotional demonstration of unresearched left-wing rhetoric designed to obvuscate the facts contained in the technical details of the Repository and scare the public.
The fear-mongering by these liberals will continue because that's all they have to rely on... Until we Nevadans vote out the likes of Reid, Berkley, Pelosi, and get rid of Bob Loux, the benifits of having the Repository in the State will not be realized.
Apparently the editors of the Las Vegas Sun cannot count. The DOE submitted the license application to the NRC on June 3rd. The NRC then had 90 days to review the application and decide whether or not it was complete enough to spend 3-4 more years considering the application for a construction license (which by the way, is still not a license to operate and handle nuclear waste). Those 90 days were up last week. And so, surprise, surprise, the NRC issued a decision. Don't see much special treatment here.
On another note, the NRC has NOT issued a decision on the merits or safety of the repository design or the application. The decision to docket the application was based on whether the application contained a complete enough argument and design to be worth reviewing.
What's the rush? You can't have it both ways. You chide the project for delay (caused in part by professional intervenors) and then turn around and attack the project for moving too fast on the license application??? A healthy dose of context is needed. Most of the Yucca science was done during the Clinton admin. That is also when Yucca was determined to be safe. For political reasons Clinton left the formal announcement and approval to the Bush folks. If the license application was rushed, which it wasn't, the application will not survive the intense review process that will occur over the next 4 or so years. The integrity of the NRC regulatory process is open for review. How exactly did the Sun editors determine that the application was submitted prematurely. Have they read the license application? Do they understand the regulatory process? Have they participated in a nuclear facility licensing process?
Has the Sun stepped back to put the exposure regulations they so frequently talk about in context??? NRC regulations only allow a member of the public to be exposed to 15mr or 5% of a typical persons annual exposure to natural radiation. A member of my family recently received a medical dose equal to 400,000 times as much as the Yucca exposure limit to successfully treat a tumor.
THIS COUNTRY AND WORLD CAN NO LONGER AFFORD TO MAKE ARGUMENTS AND DECISIONS BASED ON INCORRECT INFORMATION, FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN, AND SUPERFICIAL POLITICALLY CHARGED HYPERBOLE.
Sure looks like Yucca Mountain is a non-issue for this election cycle.
Sick Harry may still be searchlighing for a mean to say it again BUT DEMS and REPs are on a path of energy security, all of the above, domestic, and American jobs.
This is also about gas for CA driving to LV; and nuclear Power.
What kind of nonsense are you guys trying to sell us. Are you aware that the Navy has made 3,000 shipments of the same nuclear material over the last 50 YEARS without incident. You get a bigger dose of radiation from one day at the pool laying in the sun than you ever will from Yucca Mountain. Do a little homework fella's and stop feeding the public lies. You are sounding more shrill and off base every day.
First I must announce that this string of posts truly warms my heart. Bravo to those of you in here who are insisting on facts, logic, and fairness in this often one-sided debate.
There's almost nothing left to say other than:
The EPA does have a new standard and had an old one in place before a court of appeals rejected it. Only in America would 10,000 years be too short a time period for maintaining an annual dose of 15 mrem.
In any event, EPA now has a two-tier standard that includes the original 15-mrem annual level for 10,000 years plus a peak-dose level of about 350 mrem for the period after 10,000 years to one-millions years. All that remains is for EPA to finalize it, which can happen any time during the three-to-four-year NRC licensing process.
And can you believe that the State of Nevada even complained about that standard??? The astonishing arrogance of demanding predictions of anything for even a period of 10,000 years doesn't seem to faze our state politicians and lawyers, who by the way never seem to mention that even doses of 350 mrem for residents living here 10,000-plus years from now is far less than a resident of Denver receives yearly in background radiation (700 mrem); or that a patient receives from a chest CAT scan (760 mrem) or a pelvis-abdomen CAT scan (2,600 mrem).
I would like to second criticisms by other people in this thread who object to the editors' pronouncements of scientific inadequacy on the part of the Yucca Mountain Project.
On what grounds, on what authority, and with what credentials do the editors conclude that anything about the repository has not yet been "fully explained"? Define "fully," and while you're at it, define "adequate."
The license application itself is 8,600 pages long. The Environmental Impact Statement is 1,200 pages long. The rail transportation document is similarly massive. The supporting documentation for the license application is over 100,000 pages!
Anyone wishing to know about any of the issues the editors raise can easily find documentation on the NRC or DOE websites.
For example, to quell their anxiety about seismic activity, the editors could download and read the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis report or the Seismic Analysis and Design Approach Document.
To ease their angst about water infiltration they could download and read Simulation of Net Infiltration for Present-Day and Potential Future Climates or Site-Scale Saturated Zone Transport.
If they want to feel warm and fuzzy about other potential events, the editors could download and read any number of documents that exhaustively analyze every scenario imaginable. I even downloaded one that discussed the potential effects of remote-chance events like meteorite impacts, solar flares, supernovas, cosmic radiation, and -- believe it or not -- extraterrestrial life forms (yes, the DOE was even forced to address scenarios as ridiculous as an intrusion into the repository of little green men...).
The point is, anyone can access these documents, read them, and come to conclusions about various aspects of the proposed repository. All I had to do was run a keyword search on the list of supporting documents and I came up with multiple "hits" for each subject; in other words, multiple documents, each fairly substantial, addressing a given topic.
Now, to be honest, some of this material is more or less indecipherable unless you have a technical background. But one thing is clear: the volume and extent of the subjects covered completely contradicts any claim that the repository has not been studied adequately, or that any aspect of it has not been "fully explained."
And if the editors offer a "quantity versus quality" argument, I again ask, "On what authority do you make your claim?" Does that authority hold the same weight as the hundreds of sceintists and engineers, from all the major national labs, who have put their reputations on the line in documenting the case for Yucca Mountain?