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StumbleNevada files motion for Yucca application withdrawal
Monday, May 17, 2010 | 4:12 p.m.
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CARSON CITY – The state of Nevada filed a motion Monday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asking it to approve the application of the Department of Energy to pull out of Yucca Mountain.
The regulatory commission will hold hearings in Las Vegas on June 3-4 on the application to withdraw.
The petition, signed by Texas attorney Charles Fitzpatrick, says the regulatory commission “cannot second-guess an applicant’s decision to withdraw a license application.”
Fitzpatrick said the withdrawal must be granted with prejudice so that it could never be filed again. This would prevent the energy department from re-submitting it in the future.
In announcing its decision to pull out, the Energy Department said "developing the Yucca Mountain repository is not a workable option and that the nation needs a different solution for nuclear waste disposal."
It said it was ending its agreement with the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
In an affidavit attached to the motion, Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, says the application must be withdrawn so it can never be refiled. Nevada has had to look worldwide for experts in the field to build its case against the dump.
“Expert and consulting contracts cannot be kept in force for some indefinite period and, if the application is re-submitted, Nevada will find it almost impossible to put its scientific team together again,” Breslow said.
Former Gov. Bob List, now a Las Vegas lawyer, urged a legislative committee last week to take a fresh look at Yucca Mountain, saying it could mean a $100 billion boost to the economy. He said scientists could re-evaluate the potential and the safety of the project.
But Breslow said it would not be the economic bonanza that List envisions.
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BRAVO. YUCCA IS DEAD.
A bad idea whose time has passed.
There is no legal precedent in licensing for withdrawal with prejudice (the Three Mile Island license was withdrawn without prejudice), and even if it were withdrawn with prejudice, that means only this particular license application could not be resubmitted. A new application for Yucca Mountain, reworked from scratch, could still be submitted. Anyway, until the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is amended, Yucca Mountain is still the law. Once the Obama administration is gone, Yucca will be back. There is no scientific reason to withdraw - this is Obama's payback to Harry, pure and simple.
Again: A bad idea whose time has passed.
oldnuke69.....
There are plenty of scientific reasons to
withdraw from Yucca.
Yucca Mountain sits on many active and unknown
earthquake fault lines. It also sits on
underground water that flows to California.
Yucca Mountain will never be safe.
Hey teamster, Obama closing down Yucca Mountain Project is just an election year ploy to help get Harry Reid reelected. After the November elections, Obama will put Yucca back on line...
By the way, Yucca repository is located on the far side of the Nevada Test Site where at least 928 nuclear tests were conducted.
So, if Las Vegas still exists and is safe after 928 nuclear bombs were exploded between Las Vegas and Yucca Mountain, I think we will survive with the Yucca Repository back in operation...
larry, lucky for us, you republicans aren't in
charge of Yucca.
Yucca is dead, it's over, not comimg back.
Thank you, Senator Reid, for helping us protect our lives and our property. Yucca was a terrible idea and so was the method of tranporting the waste. I don't intend for my family or my neighbors to "take one for the team."
and the uniformed and uneducated are placated.....God knows there are so many things we can do with the Test Site....maybe open an RV Campground?
When people here the word "nuclear" they immediately think negative thoughts. If ONLY they would listen to logic and reason.
Why are there several Scandinavian and European countries that not only use a large proportion of nuclear power, they contain and store the waste SAFELY????
nah! It's just NV, we're too stupid to listen to logic and reap the rewards economicaly, because keeping people uniformed and scared helps to control them, and the power people in power.
Great. Keep up the fight and kill this Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) nonsense.
I don't care if it's the law or not. Because it was clearly rammed through, mostly by people who don't even live in Nevada and/or those that wanted to make money off of it. And from all appearances, those people in the above categories are in it for the money and could care less about anything else.
If YMP were to happen, at the first sign of any accident, they would walk away from it and laugh and point fingers everywhere else but at themselves. They made their money, didn't work, oh well, let's do it somewhere else, not our fault, it's your fault for letting us do it to you, so sorry that happened, but you signed a contract and you knew about this already, and in this contract it clearly says you can't sue us if we destroy the surrounding area and make it uninhabitable.
Nevada decides its own course. No one else. WE are in charge here.
YMP is not the answer to Nevada's budget woes, job diversification goals nor is it something we should pass on to future generations of Nevadans. Nor is this talk of reprocessing to make money a good idea. The rhetoric of reprocessing nuclear waste eclipses the reality of it because of the cost, the time involved to do it, the expertise and even where it can be used. It's all talk, but it escapes reality. We would be stuck with this. Not only now. But forever. Period.
And this constant spouting out that Nevada has a long nuclear history starting with atomic bomb testing is...tiresome. This is a lame excuse for continuing. No. It's not justification for this course of action at all. It don't make sense. We are BREAKING this legacy. It's stopping. Right now. Let someone else do this history and be known nationwide as a nuclear waste toilet receptacle.
I voted for President Obama because killing off YMP was one of his campaign promises. And he pulled through. Finally, politics are on Nevada's side and we can ignore all these people who have an agenda to ram it through and dump it on Nevada's shoulders.
Those that feel it's unfair, I say to you....TOUGH! Live with it. It's dead.
And to those that are pushing for YMP to happen, if they hire battalions of lawyers (including a washed up Nevada Governor), go through one judge after the other, legions of scientists, multiple court reporters, and whoever else to produce mountains of paperwork, exorbitant legal fees, one scientific assessment after another, etc., as well as a special interest group to back every issue known to man regarding the nuclear industry, I encourage them to do this with gusto and zeal. Then I can sit back and watch them waste time and effort til they are penniless.
YMP is dead. Fight all you want and waste that money on frivolous lawsuits. Not going to happen.
I read a comment in the RJ the other day that basically suggested that other states (where nuclear waste is stored) could boycott Nevada for fighting to shut down the Yucca Mountain Project.
Arizona, after all, is being threatened with boycotts from California and other states for passing a law that targets illegal aliens. Because the other states disapprove of the law, even though it doesn't seem to affect them directly, they apparently will "punish" Arizona via economic means -- i.e., a boycott.
Washington and South Carolina, both of which have gone to court to fight the attempted closure of Yucca Mountain, are among the states that will find nuclear waste "stranded" indefinitely in their home turf largely owing to Nevada's efforts to stop the project.
Which leads one to wonder whether or not these states might institute boycotts similar to the ones directed at Arizona. That would be an interesting twist to this melodrama over Yucca Mountain, and I suspect it would produce more "collateral damage" beyond the immediate layoffs and other economic impacts caused by this latest news.
Even though I've lived in Nevada for decades, I sort of agreed with the comment I saw in the RJ: If I were a resident of Washington or South Carolina especially, I would totally support a boycott of Nevada -- simply because, if the shoe were on the other foot and there was nuclear waste stored here in Nevada that the government had promised to move to another state, and that state were preventing it, I would fight tooth and nail to stop the other state.
I suppose, then, that truly committed opponents of the Yucca Mountain Project would follow Arizona's lead if Nevada were hit with boycotts from other states, and basically say, "Go ahead, we'll stand on principle and take the economic hit."
Colon showed his true colors when he wrote:
"I don't care if it's the law or not."
Typical Liberal thinking that they are above the law and think the ends justify the means.
Colin, We are in charge........ You mean Nevada?
Dude, we are the industrial one hit wonder. Open your eyes and put down your Obama commemorative sunglasses. Look around at the financial morass that is Nevada.
Holy crap you libs are freaking hilarious.
Republicans don't care about science or safety.
Yucca Mountain sits on active earthquake fault
lines.
Yucca will NEVER BE SAFE.
I'm a Republican and I want this Yucca Mt. closed. You Democrats prove yet again you know nothing and rant aimlessly without logic. Glad to see America is waking up and throwing your pitifull party out of offices nation-wide!