YUCCA MOUNTAIN:

Raises could fell tenacious foe

Face of Nevada’s opposition to waste dump might see job stripped, agency disappear

LAS VEGAS SUN FILE

Bob Loux, left, and Rep. Shelley Berkley listen as Nevada Sen. Harry Reid speaks at a news conference on Yucca Mountain in 2006. Reid says Loux’s entire career should be weighed as his fate is decided.

By Lisa Mascaro (contact), David McGrath Schwartz (contact), Cy Ryan (contact)

Sunday, Sept. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Reader poll

Yucca Mountain

Carson City — The man perhaps most responsible over the past 30 years for thwarting the federal government’s plan for a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain slides into the driver’s seat with a mischievous grin.

He has offered to drive to lunch on this hot August day. His state-issued rusted road hog looks like it belongs on an abandoned lot. The state’s fleet managers must shudder every time they see its grimy government plates.

But out here in this lonely office park where he works, miles from the Capitol in Carson City, the executive director of the Nuclear Projects Agency drives what he wants, and this car fits like a comfortable shoe.

Bob Loux is as independent as the desert sun is strong. With his longish feathered hair parted down the middle, his jeans and his short-sleeved Western shirt with pearl buttons, Loux looks, from behind the wheel of the Chevrolet Caprice, like a character in a ’70s action film.

When Loux goes to Washington, D.C., as he has regularly for three decades, there is no hiding that he is a cowboy — a suit and tie can’t change that. Nevada’s elected officials have privately relished that side of Loux — part cowboy, part rebel. They see it as fitting for a man who for most of his adult life has fought the proposed nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. Little wonder that he has worked for six governors, and survived, even flourished, under each.

But now Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons — and others — say Loux must go. Loux admitted last week he had unilaterally and improperly boosted his own salary and those of his small staff of state workers, raising his pay from $114,000 to $151,000. It is more than the governor makes, and it violates state law.

An initial review found Loux has been increasing staff salaries since 2006. A more formal audit is under way.

Lawmakers were shocked at the brazen disregard for protocol, especially as the state is suffering an extreme budget crisis. Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert filed an ethics complaint and asked the attorney general’s office to consider a criminal investigation. Democratic Assemblyman Morse Arberry suggested a violation of this magnitude could mean jail time.

Yet in a matter of hours last week, the pay raise scandal morphed into something bigger. It became a debate over Yucca Mountain.

Even though polls show a consistent majority of Nevadans oppose turning the desert into a waste dump, not everyone thinks it is such a bad idea. A tenacious minority has quietly maintained it could bring economic benefits. These few Yucca-friendly voices have kept a low profile over the years and waited patiently for a day like this — an opening to change the debate.

Loux has handed it to them.

Leading conservative pundit Chuck Muth filed a civil suit to force Loux from office, while suggesting federal investigation of funds may be warranted. The head of the state Republican Party inserted party politics into the debate by being among the first to call for Loux’s resignation. Two state Republicans lawmakers from Las Vegas, Sens. Barbara Cegavske and Bob Beers, are introducing a bill to wipe out Loux’s state office and its governing commission. Cegavske still opposes the dump, but wants to create a new division responsible to the governor.

But Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate majority leader and a vociferous foe of Yucca, is among those who say Loux’s entire career should be considered as his fate is decided.

Former Gov. Richard Bryan has come to Loux’s defense.

Loux has refused to step down and is awaiting a Sept. 23 hearing before the seven-member commission that oversees his work. He cannot be fired by the governor, only the commission.

None of this was in the air that August noon with Loux and his Chevy. He enjoys wrestling with the federal government, he would say that day at different times and in various ways. Nevada is like the little guy standing up to City Hall, in his view.

It’s fun, he said.

He fires up the old engine, steps on the gas with a foot inside a loafer without socks. Windows down, his hair flies in the wind.

• • •

In 1976, the state’s governor, Mike O’Callaghan brought Loux to the fight, tapping the draft dodging, one-time school teacher to run the state office that would become the federal government’s biggest obstacle to Yucca. Nevada was just beginning to understand its position as a desert outpost for the federal government’s plan to store the waste generated from the nation’s newly operating nuclear power plants.

With Nevada’s history of atomic weapons testing, its vast tracts of federally owned land and its thinly populated rural areas tending to embrace the Cold War nuclear program, not everyone was against the dump.

Loux was. A young man in the 1960s who avoided being drafted for the Vietnam War by faking hearing loss, he was more interested in a renewable energy revolution than a nuclear one. He had been building solar panels on senior housing shortly before he was appointed to the state office.

With federal grant money for the state to study becoming a waste repository, Loux’s office became the clearinghouse for information. By the time Congress in 1982 passed legislation naming the Nevada desert as a potential site, the campaign to stop the dump was being born.

Attitudes toward nuclear power were shifting at the time, after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and later after the Cherno-

byl disaster in 1986. Nevadans’ distrust of the federal government grew as test site workers became sick.

In 1983, the Legislature created the Nuclear Projects Agency with a mission to protect the state vis-a-vis federal plans for a waste dump in the desert. Bryan, then the governor, appointed Loux as its first executive director.

A fiefdom was being born.

Over the years, tens of millions of federal and state dollars have flowed to Loux’s office. As other states were dropped from Washington’s list of possible dump sites in 1987, Loux scooped up their best opponents and added them to his team.

Early on, Loux devised a strategy that allowed no dissent from the state’s opposition to the waste dump.

Because Nevada was a small state, without the political clout in Washington it enjoys today, Loux thought any hint at compromise with the federal government would weaken its hand and divide (and conquer) the opposition.

Elected officials learned to fall in line. If anyone in civic life thought there might be an economic benefit to housing the waste site, he kept it mostly on the fringe or to himself. Various pro-Yucca campaigns tried and failed to turn the debate.

Loux’s strategy served the state well.

It brought him a great deal of power. He operated with unique oversight. Though appointed by the governor, he can be removed only by the commission, which meets a few times a year to oversee his work. Rarely, if ever, did the commission review Loux’s budgets. It is more of a policy-setting panel, said Bryan, now the commission chairman. Loux has held the job under six governors. He has never had a performance review.

“They give us free reign to do whatever,” Loux said that day in August. “Which suits me just fine.”

• • •

Every Wednesday, Loux orchestrates a conference call in which scientific, legal and public relations strategies for Yucca Mountain are set.

In recent years, Loux has come to appreciate the flexibility of outsourcing. He pared back his office staff to a handful of longtime employees — a few project officers, an accountant, an IT guy (who is a former slot mechanic). He thinks he can adjust more nimbly to issues that arise by adding or subtracting contractors outside of the sometimes cumbersome state personnel system.

Loux and his team oversee about 50 consultants and lawyers fighting Yucca Mountain from around the world. Labs in the United Kingdom, for example, are studying water corrosion issues.

Those who participate in the Wednesday calls say Loux’s ability to distill the many layers of technical information and make swift decisions make him a formidable leader.

“Bob is the hub,” said Charlie Fitzpatrick, a Texas-based attorney whose firm was hired several years ago and was just awarded another one-year contract for $6 million.

The pay raise scandal came to light only after the fiscal 2008 books were closed and Loux’s budget ran over. Loux explained last week that after an employee retired, he divided the salary among himself and his staff, who were picking up the extra workload. Apparently, he didn’t account for the higher cost of retirement benefits that accompanied the salary increases. That cost helped push him over budget.

He apologized and took full responsibility.

Loux’s detractors say this transgression will be too much even for the commission that oversees him. Critics long have complained the commission is a rubber stamp for the state’s anti-Yucca agenda. When Gibbons tried to appoint a pro-nuclear Nye County commissioner to a vacancy this year, public outcry forced him to retreat.

Muth, the conservative activist, imagines the perfect storm in coming months: Loux is forced to resign; the Legislature convenes next year and eliminates the agency; and a more balanced conversation about Yucca Mountain begins.

“The ball has started rolling downhill,” Muth said.

Losing Loux could be a critical blow to the state’s efforts to block Yucca Mountain, some opponents of the project say.

After all these years, the project is at a critical juncture after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last week it would begin the technical review the nearly 9,000-page project application — a final hurdle. Loux’s expertise would be vital.

Bryan has stood by Loux and scoffs at the idea the state could continue fighting Yucca Mountain without the state office. At least one other commissioner, Joan Lambert, said she wants to review the case before making any decision.

Bryan sees the sharks circling and is quick to warn of the larger stakes.

“The greater danger is to use this as an ability to eliminate the state’s opposition,” he said. “Clearly, the pro-nuke crowd has been out to get Bob for years, now they’ve been handed an issue.”

• • •

Loux has seen his job threatened before. In 1998, the then-chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, tried to stop the flow of federal dollars to Loux’s office after auditors found Loux had misused educational funds on anti-Yucca efforts.

Two years later, Reid told then-Gov. Kenny Guinn during a meeting in Washington that Loux should be let go because he was too much of a lightning rod on the Hill, hampering the senator’s efforts to get the state money to fight the dump, according to a Sun story at the time.

Somehow, he always managed to survive.

Discussion: 21 comments so far…

By neiman1

9/14/08 at 9:58 a.m.

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Only a democrat that has a history of protecting his buddies and making excuses for acting "outside the law" could defend this. Stand by him harry, its your history. He raised his own salary above what the law allows and without approval, as well as that of his friends. This man should be arrested, not fired. A guy whose claim to fame is illegally avoiding the draft by faking a hearing loss, what a joke. This is the kind of crap John McCain has promised to rid us of. Guys like Harry Reid are so use to breaking the law, they don't even recognize what has Americans so p*ssed off.

Tell Harry how you feel

email link
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm...

Las Vegas
Lloyd D. George Building
333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8016
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Phone: 702-388-5020 / Fax: 702-388-5030
By Future2012

9/14/08 at 10:04 a.m.

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The gist of this article is that Nevada lobbyist Bob Loux is too important to the anti-Yucca crowd to allow him to have to face the normal consequences of fiscal malfeasance.

He is so protected that the Governor can’t fire him.

In a State that has had its share of public corruption, I have never heard that implied before.

This is a state where unions intimidation of Republican candidates (including 24/7 (Anthony Pellicano like) electronic surveillance of the Lynette Boggs) results in an immediate investigation and prosecution of a nuance reading of the law. Is there a double standard?

How did we get to the point where a single person has sole control over 10s of millions dollars doled out to “about 50 consultants and lawyers” lobbyist friends and cronies (“Bob is the hub,” said Charlie Fitzpatrick, a Texas-based attorney whose firm was hired several years ago and was just awarded another one-year contract for $6 million.)

Where is Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on this issue.

What are the contracting rules for Bob Loux? Has he applied them? Are these sole source awards? Where are the bid evaluations? Do we need to go on?

Bob loux has done this before. In 1998, the then-chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, tried to stop the flow of federal dollars to

Loux’s office after auditors found Loux had misused educational funds on anti-Yucca efforts.
Nobody should be above the law.

The State and Harry Reid will survive without Bob.
By Delsp38

9/14/08 at 10:13 a.m.

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Start out with a with a liar, demand no oversight of the position and then say it is fine that you broke the law as long as you say your sorry. Why are our leaders defending this guy? Along with Congresswoman Berkley and Gov. Bryan, I also belong to the National Threat Initiative that works to control nuclear proliferation. I have found Loux to be arrogant, rude, condencending and dismissive when you do not agree with him. This plainly is showing up now by his temerity in saying sure I broke the law and stole this money, but no big deal, I will just pay it back and continue doing business as usual.
By jfnance32

9/14/08 at 10:13 a.m.

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Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is too busy trying to stop the coal plants from being built.

She wants our power bills to go up.
By apdp

9/14/08 at 11:21 a.m.

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What a sappy article. This guy has not stopped Yucca Mtn. Wake up people, check loux’s group contributions to the Yucca Mtn. license support network. This network is available to all on the internet and contains all documents pertinent to Yucca Mtn. Contributors include contractors, DOE, Clark county etc. Basically what the state has done is pay a guy with zero scientific credentials to talk the same old dribble, which senile harry has been doing for years anyway. Zero scientific studies, zero findings reputed the science of the project contributed by loux and yet the saps who wrote this article got sucked right in.

Typical LV sun crap.
By Future2012

9/14/08 at 1:28 p.m.

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This is day 4.

How long to we have to wait?
By neiman1

9/14/08 at 3:59 p.m.

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For supporting him After the facts have become known, Harry should resign as well
By jfnance32

9/14/08 at 4:16 p.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By dbltrbl

9/14/08 at 4:45 p.m.

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What a pair to draw to! Harry and Bob. Bob and Harry....couldn't find a pair (with any hair) between 'em! Better they try out a comedy routine in some Searchlight bar...
Seriously, just when you think things can't get any worse; they do. Harry defending this guy? Bob must be carrying around more dirt on Harry than anyone knew! Yucca Mountain will be defeated as a nuke dump. Bob will exit in disgrace and Harry will do us all a favor and decide a rocking chair in Searchlight sounds better than another term embarrassing us in Washington
By letsciencedecide

9/14/08 at 5:31 p.m.

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I hope everyone is watching. They are going to let him off the hook. The Sun in behind him, the kooks are behind him.

Just imagine when Bob Loux goes in front of the NRC administrative judges and has to testify that he has all the dark secrets about Yucca Mountain - do you really think he will have any credibility under oath? Loux's credibility equals the State of Nevada's credibility.

Ask yourself why all his contracts have been awarded without competitive bidding - because he shopped for someone that would give him the answers he wanted - never the truth.
By nukeguy

9/14/08 at 6:28 p.m.

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Loux has shown a pattern of deceit. First by lying to the government to avoid the draft, misuse of Yucca funds over the years for unintended purposes and now the latest --possible criminal manipulation of salaries in clear violation of State Law. If this guy doesn't get the boot quickly, we may need to pardon all the other embezzlers held in our State prisons.
But what is worse, we now come to find out that the very person that was supposed to oversee Loux's budgets and actions is ex-Gov. Richard Bryan who is Loux's biggest apologist. What a surprise? I think Bryan needs to step down as well. A fish rots from the head and this arrangement is scandalous. How about some accountability and justice for the taxpayer?
By bag

9/14/08 at 11:25 p.m.

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Your readers have pretty much hit the nail on the head. Any attempt to make this just about Loux is not honest. Loux was an important player in what has become a very strange drama. The dialogue in Nevada has been controlled for so long by a few politicians, bureacrats and members of the media. They have worked hard to stymie freedom of thought and opinion concerning Yucca and nuclear technology. I believe there is a great deal of pent up hostility towards Loux because of this - people want an honest discussion of the issue and the opportunity to make this into something very positive for Nevada. Our neighbors in New Mexico and Idaho have done great job of leveraging their relationship with DOE and the federal government to attract thousands of high paying, technology oriented opportunities. The fuel going into Yucca Mountain will be recycled and is worth its weight in gold -- if we worked constructively with the federal government we can develop a high technology built around recycling that could include power generation, deals with coastal areas to use nuclear power for desalination to solve our water problems and eventually to create hydrogen fuel for full cell cars. The opportunities are endless is our political readers finally start playing thier cards right. What happened to Loux is the tip of the iceberg -- he thought he was invincible (and he was for years) and people who are in that position usually lose touch with reality. An amazing amount of science and technology has gone into the Yucca Mountain Project. The scientist deserve praise -- instead they have had to deal with so much nonsense in the press and coming from politicians about the great work they have done. The truth will come out during the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process (assuming that the politicians don't interfere with this science based process). Hopefully this situation with Loux will finally focus attention on this very strange situation and the public will call on Nevada leaders to do the right thing.
By Ardent

9/15/08 at 11:34 a.m.

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I'm usually disappointed by the obvious anti-Yucca partisanship of the Sun, but this article is truly revolting.

Only a feeble-minded, mentally enslaved disciple would set up a new alter immediately after his god has been exposed as a sham idol made out of papier mache and bailing wire.

Mascaro, Schwartz, and Ryan are either deluded or cynical beyond comprehension to run a piece lionizing the biggest fraud who probably ever held office in our state. All this talk about Loux the "rebel cowboy," the lone voice standing up to government oppression, the colorful maverick who drives around in a beat-up Chevy. Please.

Loux may be a great guy, a guy you'd want to have a beer with (like George Bush), but his whole career has been a massive fraud allowed to continue year after year simply because he's an able propagandist preaching to the choir.

He was profoundly underqualified for the position in the first place and remains so, but Richard Bryan, the man who originally hired Loux, continues to defend him (surprise, surprise).

He has been caught red-handed perpetrating one specimen of malfeasance and corruption after another, but as long as it was done in service to the State's irrational jihad against the repository, no one cared.

He has been audited and reprimanded by the GAO for suspicious and potentially unstatutory budgeting. As the director of an agency created and funded for oversight and public information purposes by the federal government, he has awarded no-bid, no-compete contracts to well-known anti-nuclear activists and out-of-state firms who are willing for a hefty fee to provide him the answers he wants, even though the answers don't ever hold up to scientific scrutiny.

He has, in short, despite his nifty retro haircut and his colorful personality, arrogated money that should have been spent on legitimate purposes but instead was spent on enriching himself and his cronies. Even in his possibly illegal misuse of government funds, he has managed to fail in his state-sanctioned mission to effectively thwart the Yucca Mountain Project.

All he managed to do was postpone the inevitable for a period of time sufficent to make himself and his staff financially comfortable. And when he rides of into the sunset on October 2nd, his planned date of retirement, he will have a big fat pension (80% of salary) to fund the many nights of whimsical remembrance. "How I fleeced them all!"
By jpowal

9/15/08 at 10:13 p.m.

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It appears the “hate Loux factor” is rather high among the readers of this article. Well what the commenter(s) fail to acknowledge is that Yucca Mountain leaks! Yea, that’s correct the mountain leaks. It’s just not a good site to dispose of nuclear spent fuel and High-Level radioactive waste. Oh, and guess what, Mr. Loux and his team (staff and contractors) are the folks who identified the flaws in the geology at Yucca Mountain. Remember the facts now – it was the U.S. Congress that insisted the natural geology around a nuclear repository must act as the central barrier for containing radioactivity from the biosphere. So what do we have now? Well, the DOE’s plan is to place titanium drip shields over hundreds of waste packages inside Yucca Mountain. What an absurd idea; can you image the cost!

I’ll bet that if Bob Loux wasn’t there for all these years protecting Nevada, we wouldn’t event have this unworkable costly titanium drip shield plan to hang our hats on. Without Mr. Loux’s office, DOE would have just dumped the rad-waste in Yucca years ago. So give me brake. Bob Loux is doing a great job for Nevada and this country. Let’s keep Bob – he the best man to stop Yucca Mountan!
By Ardent

9/16/08 at 8:36 a.m.

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jpowal:

The problem is that Loux has been given the wrong kind of "brake" for 20 years: instead of a "brake" on his chronic malfeasance, he's been given a break on honesty, on fiscal responsibility, and most of all on respect for scientific truth.

You can avoid joining that crowd yourself by explaining to readers what you mean by "the mountain leaks." Are you trying to imply that the geology hasn't been adequately characterized by the DOE? Or that there's some magical geological formation out there that is both non-fractured and non-porous? (And don't try to use the familiar salt dome argument, or talk about denser and less porous rock deposits like shale.)

You should really read the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) before you start spouting off about Congress mandating a "central barrier." I suggest Section 112 for starters, which presents a more complex picture of how the law envisions the selection of a site for a national repository. One thing is certain: the NWPA envisions a combination of barriers, natural and engineered, as well as a balanced, reciprocal relationship between them. The siting of a repository, according to the NWPA, must also take non-geological factors into account, so don't be sure that the alternative you apparently envision (but fail to mention) would pass muster.

Also consider that the bulk of the studies commissioned by Loux (no one in his office has the scientific know-how to conduct such a study, by the way) have been soundly discredited by credible, independent scientific groups. Look, for example, into what the NAS said about Szymanski's absurd rising groundwater study, which was funded by Loux and his cronies.

And as far as the drip shield argument goes, they are just one component in the design, and Loux's argument, which focuses on future cost of titanium and the remote-controlled placement of drip shields, is ridiculous on many levels. It demonstrates, in fact, just how superficial and tenuous Loux's grasp of science and engineering really is. All he could come up with is the idea that titanium would be too scarce or expensive in the future, and that the "robots" designed to install the drip shields are science fiction.

Hah! Science fiction. Loux has credibility on the fiction part, but not a scrap of it on the science part.
By bag

9/16/08 at 9:51 a.m.

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Jpowal needs to do his/her homework. Yucca does not leak. First of all there is no material in the repository so how is it leaking? Second,the whole concept of Yucca leaking at a future date is based on bad scientific information repeated over and over and over again until some people actually start believing its true. The material that will ultimately go into Yucca, if the site is found to be safe by the NRC, is generally a solid ceramic pellet or glass log. NO LIQUIDS. There is nothing to leak. If under some very unlikelty scenario the 6 inches of rain we get each year (of which some 99%+ evaporates, runs off before traveling more than a very small distance through the ground) travels over 1000 feet through rock, destroys the massive steel containers the waste is stored in, and then somehow, by some miracle, disolves a solid ceramic pellet thus creating a transport mechanism, then travels another 1000 feet to the "water table" through rock that contains a mineral that acts as a natural receptacle for radionuclides, once in the "water table" (which is hardly the fast flowing underground river that Nevada portrays) the material will move very slowy in what is a closed hydrologic basin that ends in Death Valley (far from any population center). This scenario is all fiction.

The arguement that the use of engineered barriers like drip shields means that the site is bad is flat wrong. It is standard practice to use the knowledge gained from the study of a sites geology and hydrology for the purpose of developing engineered features to make it even safer. It is also standard practice for opponents to argue that the use of engineered features is a bandaid for a bad site.
By thfargo

9/16/08 at 11:32 a.m.

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so lemme see, this guy Loux looses an employee, the state wont let him hire somebody to replace him, his other employees have to pick up the extra work so Loux pays them for it. Thirty or foourty years ago Loux and thousands of other guys dodge the draft to get out of a war that was probably illegal and was in fact disastrous for the country. He hired an ex slot mechanic to be his IT guy (who I guess by virtue of the fact that he was just a working stiff makes him incapable of understanding the high techworld of computers) he wears cowboy shirts and hes got long hair. You guys are missing the boat. You should be investigating his preacher.
By Impeach_Harry_Reid

9/16/08 at 2:59 p.m.

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Some excellent comments herein from the obviously more intelligent authors... Some very moronic views spewed by others...

Impeach Harry Reid and throw Loux-Luthor in jail ASAP....

Let's change the debate to what the State can gain by hosting the Repository...
By jpowal

9/16/08 at 9:52 p.m.

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Well -- it looks like I might have pushed the issue away from a discussion about Mr. Loux's credibility to the credibility of Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste repository.

As far as my comments about the site leaking "rad waste" through the waster table -- let's remember the facts. We need to contain the waste inside Yucca for a million years if we intend to meet EPA's yet to be released radiation standard for the site. That's a million years of waste package corrosion and that's why the local geology is so important.

So please don't give me that bull about the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act and Congress intent about the geology "not" being the main barrier for waste containment. It was always about the geology and Yucca Mountain just doesn't meet the grade. And that's why we need DOE's "Jules Vern" titanium trip shields along with the lunacy of a "hot repository" to pretend the waste won't leak to the biosphere. Once again, Mr. Loux and his team have done a great service for Nevada and the country -- let's keep them on the job! Yucca Mountain is a loser and Mr. Loux (a winner) has made the case!
By Ardent

9/17/08 at 8:43 a.m.

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jpowal:

It was Tip O'Neill, I think, who said that "You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts."

You call us to remember the "facts" when you apparently don't fully grasp them yourself.

The EPA standard you mention pertains in part to projected dose along conventional pathways. It is a two-tiered standard that caps the individual dose at 15 mrem annually for the first 10,000 years, and limits the peak dose thereafter (up to a million years) at 350 mrem annually.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the meaning of the numbers, 15 mrem is roughly the equivalent of a chest x-ray (with the distinction that the source of a chest x-ray is inches from your body, while the repository is 100 miles away). As far as the 350 mrem dose goes, all of us receive about the same in background radiation (residents of Denver receive about 700 mrem annually).

As far as the groundwater standard you seem to be referring to, the suggestion that the repository must be leak-proof is absurd. Every governing document uses a conservative expectation that there will be releases of radionuclides into the biosphere; the question is, at what level are these releases a danger to public health and safety. The EPA standard codified at 40 CFR 197.30 lays out the limits for releases into groundwater, and the DOE claims its repository design will observe these limits over the period of regulatory compliance. The NRC will evaluate this claim and, in part, render its decision based on this evaluation.

So to suggest that (a) the natural barrier is the "main barrier" and that (b) this barrier must be entirely leak-proof is simply false. The standards encompass a variety of barriers and processes: geology, hydrology, water chemistry, thermal loading, material characteristics, and so on. To dwell on geology, as if it were the sine qua non of repository performance, is misleading in the extreme.