[ RadSafe ] Yucca Mtn Update

[Miller, Mark L]

As Yucca project stalls, Utah nuke waste dump hits fast track

Doug Abrahms <mailto:online at rgj.com>  Gannett News Service
4/2/2005 11:15 pm

 

WASHINGTON - The fates of proposed nuclear waste dumps in Nevada and
Utah are heading in opposite directions.

The Yucca Mountain project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is already
years behind schedule. And this week, a House oversight panel will hold
a hearing on allegations of falsified scientific data on the project,
which could further delay it.

Meanwhile, an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already
approved a plan to temporarily store nuclear waste on an Indian
reservation about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City. Utah officials will
appeal that decision next week, but experts expect the Private Fuel
Storage project to win final approval and start operating by 2007.

"I am nervous about what's happening right now," said U.S. Rep. Jim
Matheson, R-Utah. "I think once (nuclear waste) gets here, it will be
very tough to get rid of."

Two different projects

The projects at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the Skull Valley Band of
Goshute Indians reservation in Utah are vastly different.

Yucca Mountain is a federal project designed to bury 77,000 tons of
nuclear waste from around the country in deep underground storage
forever.

The Skull Valley site, which is privately owned, will house about 44,000
tons of atomic reactor rods on a concrete pad above ground and only has
a 25-year lease.

Many in the industry saw Private Fuel Storage, a project funded by
several large utilities, as a way station for nuclear waste between
power plants in the East and Yucca Mountain.

"That's always been the concept of this facility," Private Fuel Storage
spokeswoman Sue Martin said. "The utilities could see by the early '90s
that Yucca Mountain wasn't going to be finished by 1998," its initial
target date.

The Utah project was approved in February by the Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board, an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But it
still needs full NRC approval and Bureau of Land Management permission
to build a rail spur to the waste site.

The Energy Department and industry representatives say Yucca Mountain
remains their long-term solution to store nuclear waste despite the
investigation into potentially falsified U.S. Geological Survey data and
an appeals court ruling that Yucca Mountain's radiation standards
weren't stringent enough.

"Right now, we are moving forward with Yucca Mountain," said Anne
Womack-Kolton, an Energy Department spokeswoman. "We continue to believe
that a permanent geologic repository is necessary."

No opening date for Yucca

Yucca Mountain was supposed to start receiving spent nuclear fuel for
permanent storage in 2010, but Energy Department officials in February
pushed that back to 2012 and Womack-Kolton won't give an official
opening date at this time.

The project is moving forward, although more slowly than industry
officials would like, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the Nuclear
Energy Institute, which represents electric companies. The federal
government is obligated to take possession of the nuclear waste produced
by atomic reactors, he said.

"We fully expect the government to meet its obligation one way or
another," he said. "(Yucca Mountain) is the plan on the table. On that
basis, we're not looking for a Plan B."

However, Nevada officials point to the growing list of court decisions,
ballooning costs and, most recently, false documents as evidence that
the Yucca Mountain project is falling off the tracks.

"Clearly, there's a growing loss of confidence in Congress as well as
the utilities as to whether this thing works out," said Bob Loux,
executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, which
opposes Yucca Mountain. "Now, it is no longer a question of whether
Yucca Mountain will crumble, but when."

Loux together with U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign of Nevada and
Gov. Kenny Guinn will testify against the project at a House Government
Reform Committee hearing Tuesday on the falsified documents.

Utah still fighting dump

Utah lawmakers are still pursuing their own avenues to stop the nuclear
waste project at Skull Valley. U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, will
introduce a bill to convert federal land next to the reservation into a
wilderness area to prevent a rail spur from being built.

Matheson, the only Utah lawmaker to vote against Yucca Mountain, opposes
nuclear waste being shipped to the West.

When Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982, he said,
there were to be sites in the East and West. But in 2005, both sites for
a nuclear waste dump are in the West, he said.

"It tells you the politics are driving this more than the science
perspective," Matheson said. "I think this was a clear case of the East
dumping its waste on the West."