U.S. lawmakers seek interim site for nuclear waste

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday January 7, 8:02 pm Eastern Time

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Legislation was introduced in the 
U.S. House of Representatives late on Wednesday to establish an 
interim storage site in Nevada for thousands of tons of nuclear 
waste.  

The legislation would allow the nation's utilities to ship spent fuel 
and other radioactive waste from their nuclear power plants to 
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, even before the site is formally approved 
for long-term storage.  

The bill, which is similar to legislation overwhelmingly approved in 
the last Congress, is sponsored by Reps. Fred Upton, Republican 
of Michigan, and Edolphus Towns, Democrat of New York.  

The issue of whether or not Yucca Mountain - which is some 90 
miles north of Las Vegas - is a safe place to put nuclear waste is 
under dispute.  

Environmentalists charge that the U.S. Department of Energy's 
(DOE) research shows rainwater less than 50 years old has been 
detected at the level of the proposed repository.  

The DOE has said uncertainties remain about the Yucca site and 
that environmental impact assessments would be conducted in the 
next two years before the final recommendation on whether to 
approve the site is made to the president in 2001.  

The Nuclear Industry Institute praised the legislation, arguing a 
central repository is needed to store nuclear waste.  

``The nation's need for nuclear energy and the federal government's 
obligation to safely isolate used nuclear fuel...make it imperative 
that Congress and the White House act on a bipartisan basis to 
meet one of our top environmental challenges,'' the trade group 
said.  

The consumer group Public Citizen criticized the measure, fearful 
that opening Yucca Mountain even as a temporary site would 
expose 50 million Americans across 43 states to danger from 
nuclear waste shipment accidents.  

``How could any member of Congress assume we could transport 
100,000 shipments of deadly radioactive waste without serious 
consequences?'' asked Auke Piersma, energy policy analyst for 
Public Citizen.  

The waste site would become the home for some 70,000 metric 
tons of spent radioactive fuel rods from nuclear power plants, and 
additional waste from production of nuclear weapons.  

Currently, around 38,000 tons of spent fuel is being stored at more 
than 70 commercial nuclear power plants across the country, 
pending the resolution of a dispute over when the federal 
government must remove the waste for storage.  

A coalition of states and nuclear utilities has charged that a 1982 
law ordered the DOE to start disposing of spent nuclear fuel no 
later than Jan. 31, 1998, and that a department viability study on 
Yucca Mountain released in December clears the way for building 
an interim waste site.  

Last November, the Supreme Court let stand a U.S. appeals court 
ruling that refused to force the DOE to start taking waste, but did 
allow utilities to seek compensation for costs related to the storage 
of spent fuel at their facilities.  

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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