Yucca Mountain News Clips - Tuesday, April 22, 2003

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
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Los Angeles Times
April 18, 2003

Bechtel Gets Iraq Contract

San Francisco firm will get up to $680 million over 18 months to begin the rebuilding project. Critics decry the lack of an open bidding process.

By David Streitfeld and Mark Fineman, Times Staff Writers

The federal government on Thursday selected San Francisco's Bechtel Group for a $680-million contract to oversee the rebuilding of Iraq, a massive task that will involve everything from airports, schools, roads, bridges and railroads to power grids, water systems and sewers.

So crucial is this work to America's postwar presence in the wounded nation that the 98-page request for bids secretly sent out to a handful of American companies declared the effort essential to keeping the peace there.

Bechtel said it was "honored" to have been selected by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Even critics acknowledged that the task was extraordinary.

"This has never been done before — an American corporation rebuilding an entire foreign country," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight.

The government said Bechtel will initially receive $34.6 million under the contract, which provides for up to $680 million over the next 18 months. But USAID officials said the total will be far higher. Experts say it will cost tens of billions of dollars to fulfill the agency's goal of creating "the fundamental structures for democracy and economic growth."

Bechtel, the nation's biggest U.S. construction and engineering firm, said it had already started working with USAID to "prioritize and detail" what needs to be done.

The company's next step is to find subcontractors. Bechtel will be responsible for coordinating construction work by dozens of subcontractors employing thousands of workers.

"It will be a full and open and international bidding process," Bechtel spokesman Mike Kidder said.

None of that was true in the first round. The size of the rebuilding contract — the biggest of eight totaling $1.7 billion being awarded by USAID — and the fact that it was cloaked under the veil of national security drew criticism from Capitol Hill and government watchdog groups.

"A troubling pattern is starting to emerge," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). "We're seeing some of the country's most powerful business interests showing up and getting these contracts. That ought to set off bells."

Wyden is cosponsoring a bill to force public disclosure of Iraq contracts awarded without open, competitive bidding.

The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, has launched a wide-ranging investigation. An amendment to the $80-billion war-spending bill President Bush signed this week allocates more than $4 million for USAID's inspector general to monitor and audit money spent in Iraq.

Bechtel, which was founded in 1898 by Warren Bechtel and is closely controlled by his descendants, built Hoover Dam in the early 1930s. Other major company projects include the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and the Channel Tunnel.

Bechtel has often worked on military as well as other government contracts, including the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

Like many firms that work extensively with the government, it has been a large political contributor: $1.3 million to federal campaigns and candidates since 1999, according to the Federal Election Commission. Fifty-nine percent of the money went to Republicans and the rest to Democrats, records show.

Over the decades, Bechtel has been closely tied to the government in other ways, too. George P. Shultz, Treasury secretary for President Nixon, stepped down in 1974 to become president of Bechtel. In 1982, Shultz became President Reagan's secretary of State. Shultz is currently a member of Bechtel's board.

Caspar W. Weinberger was a Bechtel director, vice president and general counsel before becoming Reagan's secretary of defense in 1981.

Officials have stressed that politics played no role in awarding the contracts.

USAID administrator Andrew S. Natsios emphasized that all 123 employees in the agency's procurement division are career civil servants and that he and all other political appointees are legally barred from participating in the process. The procurement staff awarded the contract after evaluating the companies' capabilities and reviewing the cost estimates.

Nevertheless, the company is a lightning rod for activists. Bechtel's headquarters in San Francisco's financial district was the scene of several demonstrations as the war began in late March.

Even after the protesters stopped coming, the company left the crowd control barriers up in front of its building, just in case.

Bechtel has been the subject of more substantive criticism too. In Boston, Bechtel has come under fire for its co-management of the Big Dig project to replace a 7.5-mile elevated highway with an eight-lane underground tunnel.

Over its nearly 20-year history, the cost of the project has ballooned from $2.5 billion to$15 billion. The state government is investigating whether Bechtel is responsible for mistakes that total more than $1 billion.

"They were in charge of the biggest infrastructure project in the history of America, and they screwed it up," said Brian of the Project on Government Oversight.

Bechtel has defended itself vigorously and says the criticism is "fundamentally flawed."

Reaction was muted Thursday for the losing finalists, who received no formal notice from USAID.

"Thanks for letting us know," said a surprised spokeswoman for the low-profile Louis Berger Group of New Jersey, the dark-horse candidate. "There's not much to say," said a spokeswoman for Pasadena-based Parsons Corp.

Fluor Corp. was more upbeat. "We have never seen this as the only contract to rebuild Iraq," spokesman Jerry Holloway said. The Aliso Viejo-based contractor secured on April 4 a civil engineering contract from the Army Corps of Engineers worth up to $100 million. Much of the work will be done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

USAID officials defended their decision to use the streamlined process that exempted it from open, competitive bidding, saying President Bush requested that the contracts be awarded in about two months. A competitively bid USAID contract could take six months. The Bechtel contract was awarded in 63 days.

A last-minute hurdle arose when finalists raised the issue of liability and legal costs they could face in such a potentially dangerous country and asked USAID to indemnify them.

It's very unusual for the government to provide such insurance, but the White House released an order Thursday signed by Bush indemnifying Bechtel from claims arising from "chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, agents or materials; land or sea mines or similar explosive devices or unexploded ordnance."

In the month since the administration's plans to rebuild Iraq were first disclosed, the project has often been compared to the post-World War II Marshall Plan. But that project involved direct grants to European countries, which used the money to jump-start their devastated economies.

This time, the funds are flowing directly to U.S. companies. Among those winning earlier USAID contracts were North Carolina's Research Triangle Institute, whose contract for local governance services could be worth $167 million in the first year, and Creative Associates International of Washington, which will receive up to $62.6 million over the next 12 months for rehabilitating Iraq's educational system.

The rebuilding of Kuwait after the 1991 Persian Gulf War cost $650 million. But the emirate had different circumstances.

"Kuwait was damaged, it wasn't destroyed," said Ralph Locurcio, former commander of the Kuwait Emergency Reconstruction Office. "We weren't starting from rubble."

Moreover, Locurcio added, "in Kuwait you had a fully functional government that was cooperative and had money. A third of my team was Kuwaiti. We weren't being imposed on them. If there's not a complete acceptance of this assistance by the Iraqi population, I would think it could be a very hazardous undertaking."

Now a senior vice president at STV Inc., a privately held Pennsylvania engineering firm that hopes to work in Iraq as a subcontractor, Locurcio feels that USAID's 18-month timetable for rebuilding is within the realm of possibility.

"It doesn't boggle my mind," he said. But he notes that when he went to Kuwait in 1991, he told his wife he would be back in three months. He was gone a year.

Streitfeld reported from Los Angeles and Fineman from Washington.

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Manitou Messenger
April 18, 2003

Indigos strike activist chord

By Danielle Daniel
Staff Writer

Friday, April 18, 2003

The Indigo Girls and environmental activist Winona LaDuke paired up last Thursday to educate and entertain students as part of the Honor the Earth Tour.

Though many long-time fans of the Indigo Girls were thrilled to hear a live performance by this female duo, they were even more moved by the message of environmental responsibility.

"I walked away with an affirmed conviction of what is being done to our environment and what role I play in that, as well as what role I could play that is crucial to my role as a citizen," Carolyn Albert ´06 said.

The concert began with a short video describing the Honor the Earth Tour followed by sets of tunes by the Indigo Girls and an informal talk by LaDuke.

Emily Sandgren ´03 said she was impressed by the friendliness and approachability of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers performers.

"It was just a night of people getting together to talk and listen," Sandgren said. "[The Indigo Girls] were just part of the group having fun."

LaDuke´s talk focused on the importance of conservation of energy through the use of wind turbines, as well as the negative effects of the Yucca Mountain Project, which will be voted on in July.

The Yucca Mountain Project is a proposal engineered by President George W. Bush and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But this proposal is problematic for the Shoshone and Pauite people as well as U.S. citizens, according to LaDuke.

The Yucca Mountain range, LaDuke pointed out, is within the Western Shoshone Nation, and the area, sacred to the Shoshone people, has not been deeded to the U.S. government, even though the government has used Native American lands for testing and dumping of nuclear waste in the past.

"If big corporations make a [nuclear waste] mess, then they need to clean it up," Sandgren said. "They cannot push it on other groups who have less of a voice."

LaDuke also expressed the danger of transporting approximately 10,000 shipments of nuclear waste across the country to the mountain range.

In fact, she said, the mountain itself is located in an area of seismic activity, which further compromises the safety of the Nevada citizens and Native American people.

"[Before the concert] I knew a lot about Winona LaDuke – I had read her books and studied about her," Sandgren said. "But going to the event continued to inspire me. It was amazing to see her in person."

Some students said that the Indigo Girls music added to the impact of LaDuke´s environmental message.

"I thought it was a really good way to raise awareness and a great way to get people interested in [the environment]," Deanna Steege ´06 said.

The Indigo Girls originally met Winona LaDuke in 1991 in Boston, MA at an Earth Day benefit.

Since that time, the women have developed a strong friendship and have worked to improve Native American rights and their environmental concerns, and to make other people throughout the U.S. aware of these issues.

Kristine Thomsen ‘05 said she thought the three women as a team drew a much larger crowd than she anticipated to learn about important environmental issues.

"I thought [LaDuke] had some good ideas about what we need to pay attention to in our country," Thomsen said. "I think the environment gets overlooked a lot, and the environment is probably a cliché that we get tired of hearing about, but we never do anything about it."

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Pahrump Valley Times
April 19, 2003

PETT funds will put PVHS back on track

By Mark Waite, Reporter

Commissioners Approve $630,000 for All-Weather Track, other School Improvements

Nye County School Dis-trict officials applauded as county commissioners approved $630,776 for imme-diate needs at local schools, including an all-weather, rubberized track at Pahrump Valley High.

The existing dirt track can't be used for high school meets. The $400,000 for demolishing the existing track, putting in drainage, grading, three-inch deep paving, surfacing and strip-ing, comprised most of the funding request. It also in-cluded $180,776 for new playgrounds for Manse Elementary School and Round Mountain Elemen-tary School along with $50,000 in computers.

School board trustees Melanie Reiner, Dawn Murphy and Debbie Wescoatt sat in the audience, along with Nye County School District Supt. William "Rob" Roberts, Maintenance and Op-erations Supervisor Don Brod, Business Manager Ray Ritchie, PVHS Principal Jerry Hill, Athletic Di-rector Dave Harris, Rosemary Clarke Middle School Principal Dale Norton and various coaches.

Ron Eason, principal of J.G. Johnson Elementary School, recalled when the existing high school track was built in 1984, with the help of local businessmen like Ray Wulfenstein and Ron Floyd.

"We put on crushed rock, for a few years that was a nice running track," Eason said.

Nye County Commissioner Patricia Cox had suggested funding items on a list of immediate needs, like the playground equipment and computers, but not the track, and adding items on a list of future needs, totaling $472,746, like language arts textbooks.

Cox's suggestion not to fund the track triggered a debate over the value of athletics in schools.

"What my son learned from being in the sports program was invaluable. He learned to be part of a team," Commissioner Joni Eastley said. "If he wanted to be good at something he had to practice."

"The sports program does about the same thing as a music program but in a different way," Hill said. "Probably about 40 percent of our students are involved in athletics."

Pahrump Valley High has a lot of substandard fea-tures, Hill said, it was built for 500 students, requiring modular buildings, there aren't enough computers and it's just now getting facilities in shape for athlet-ics.

PVHS students have a much higher success rate passing high school proficiency tests than in Clark County, he said. "We have first rate kids, they deserve first rate facilities," Hill said.

Assistant track coach Andrew Schneider said PVHS hasn't hosted a track meet in five years, a situation that requires local families to spend money to travel to other schools. Schneider added a lot of local people would use the track too.

Commissioner Candice Trummell inquired about holding off on a request for playground equipment at Manse, to see if the school was going to be relocated. Roberts said the equipment could be moved if the school was moved.

Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver said parents in Round Mountain were more concerned about getting quality teachers and more books than the playground equipment.

Cox also had concerns about the school district having funds to take care of the recently renovated football fields. Hill gave assurances the fields would be maintained.

Commissioner Eastley, in making the motion to ap-prove the funding, specified money for the track and the computers would come out of interest in an educa-tional endowment fund, earned off money the county received from the U.S. Department of Energy in Payment Equal to Taxes for taxes that would normally be paid on the land value of Yucca Mountain. The playground equipment she specified should come out of a fund for special projects, also using PETT money.

Last year the county commission gave the school district $1.5 million for mold remediation at Pahrump Valley High School and $100,000 for damaged textbooks. Two years ago, commissioners gave the school district sev-eral hundred thousand dol-lars to buy six school buses out of PETT funds.

The commission had Eas-tley's motion to approve the funding on the table with a handful of people still waiting to speak.

"I graduated from Pahrump Valley High School a long time ago. That track and those facilities are the same thing that was there when Henry was going to school there," Mike Floyd said, pointing to Commission Chairman Henry Neth.

"It's time after 30 years we put a little money into Pahrump Valley High School. We're building schools all over the county."

Parent Cindy Colucci said her children are learning invaluable lessons participating in school sports. She also voiced complaints over the lack of a local track.

"We sent 120 kids to dif-ferent towns six times al-ready this year just at the middle school level, and parents are following those kids and they're buying meals and buying gas in other people's towns be-cause we don't have the facility here," Colucci said.

A critic of the spending, Robert Smith was booed when he said it was totally absurd and ridiculous to spend $400,000 on a rubberized track.

"What's wrong with the woodchips that you got in the park behind here?" Smith said, referring to Petrack Park. "It seems when schools are men-tioned in Pahrump the sky's the limit."

Trummell told Smith the vast majority of the money for the improvements wouldn't be paid by prop-erty taxpayers, it was com-ing out of interest on the endowment fund.

Rosemary Clarke Middle School eighth grader Steve Kelly told commissioners there's potholes on the existing track and some chil-dren are getting injured.

"The value of sports to me as a student has helped my grades, it helps my behavior. It keeps me in line, gives me something to strive for," Kelly

©Pahrump Valley Times 2003

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The Independent
20 April 2003

The world's at Bechtel's beck and call

From the rebuilding of Iraq to the Jubilee Line, the really big projects land in the lap of an American company that is as secretive financially as it is well connected politically

By Clayton Hirst

On 20 December 1983, Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad to meet Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his deputy, Tariq Aziz. Then Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, Mr Rumsfeld was on a friendly mission to get the peace process going in the Lebanon.

But another subject was raised during the two-and-a-half-hour meeting with what are now two of the world's most wanted men. Previously classified documents, compiled by US think-tank the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), reveal that Mr Rumsfeld also outlined plans for a huge pipeline, running from Iraq to the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan, which would have safeguarded oil supplies to the West.

Less than a month earlier, the US State Department, then headed by George Shultz, had selected a company to carry out this $1bn (£640m) project: Bechtel Corporation. But it didn't seem to matter that Mr Shultz was a former Bechtel executive. "Out of public view, he pushed the pipeline project on behalf of his former company," says an IPS report into the affair. The project was eventually rejected by Saddam.

It seems to matter even less that Mr Shultz, having retired from politics, is back on the board of his old firm, which on Friday won the first contract, worth $680m, to rebuild the Iraq that was blitzed into submission by Mr Rumsfeld's army and air force.

Welcome to the private life of one of the best-connected, most powerful and most secretive companies in the world.

Bechtel's tentacles extend deep into the corridors of power. "For a top job at Bechtel, former military personnel, ex-diplomats and retired politicians need apply," says one former employee, who asked not to be identified. Bechtel's ties with the American intelligence service, through its network of associates, has earned it the nickname "the working arm of the CIA" and spawned a thousand conspiracy theories. "Some say the firm is a 'shadow government'," says one website, which goes on to claim that former Bechtel officers are part of a US cult.

But the company's political leverage has also got more level-headed commentators worried. Jim Vallette, author of the IPS report, says: "We are seeing US foreign policy being taken over by large corporations. Companies like Bechtel are ahead of the queue."

The fact that Bechtel is involved in some of the world's largest construction and engineering projects does little to quell these concerns. The 105-year-old company, which employs 47,000 people, helped to build the Hoover Dam and the Yucca Mountain nuclear store (both in Nevada in the US), as well as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. It even extinguished blazing Kuwaiti oil fields after the last Gulf war.

The San Francisco-based group is headed by Riley Bechtel, the fourth generation of the family to run the privately owned company since it was founded to build railroads in the American West. Bechtel's power structure is determined simply by how close executives are to the 49-year-old billionaire.

Bechtel's corporate culture is tough, serious, hard-working and aggressive. As a result, engineers are highly regarded, extremely well-paid and are often brought in to sort out tricky projects that have started to go wrong.

Bechtel does, however, have a large blot on its copybook. In 1985 it was commissioned to design and manage the construction of a $3.5bn underground transport network in Boston, known as the "Big Dig". Costs have ballooned and are now estimated to be $14.8bn. Construction is still continuing.

Bechtel, along with the Massachusetts state authority and transport experts Parsons Brinckerhoff, has come in for serious criticism. In 2000 a Federal taskforce said the trio had "repeatedly and deliberately" failed to disclose the true cost of the project. In the same year, the chairman of the Senate committee on transport, Senator John McCain, said the project had suffered from "gross mis-management".

This hasn't stopped the British Government embracing Bechtel with open arms. The Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the Jubilee Line extension and the Limehouse Link in London's Docklands are three of Bechtel's successes. More recently it has been brought in to sort out the West Coast Main Line; it has become a member of the consortium taking over part of the London Underground; and it has been hired to advise the new Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Between 1999 and 2002 Bechtel gave almost $1.3m in campaign donations in the US, mainly to the Republicans, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. In the UK, Bechtel's political links are harder to spot. According to the annual report and accounts of Bechtel Holdings filed at Companies House, the company made no political donations in 2000.

Chuck Redman, who heads Bechtel's operations in Europe, has no obvious connections to UK politics. Before joining Bechtel in 1996, he spent 22 years with the US State Department as special ambassador to Sweden and Germany and as an envoy to Yugoslavia and Haiti.

The only British director of Bechtel Holdings is Sir John Jennings, the former chairman of Shell. His contacts in the oil industry are understood to be highly valued by Mr Redman.

A senior adviser to the Government says: "Bechtel has skills that the UK doesn't have. Project managing big, complex projects is bread and butter for Bechtel. We are not very good at that in the UK. Bechtel gets results by throwing highly skilled people at problems. They are not always the easiest people to deal with – you wouldn't want to go out for a drink with them after work. But they get the job done."

Many Bechtel staff working from its two London bases in Hammersmith and the City are Americans. The company has a culture of moving home-grown engineers to projects rather than hiring locally. "The Americans are very expensive. Their wages are six times those of the UK equivalent," says one former employee. "That's why you'll find so many Bechtel employees living in Belgravia."

The fees that Bechtel charges are a closely guarded secret. The Department of Trade and Industry refuses to say how much it is paying the company for its work on nuclear decommissioning, insisting that it is "commercially sensitive information". However, it is understood that Bechtel has committed 10 executives to the two-year project, who will charge a daily rate for their time.

Despite these sorts of lucrative contracts, the latest accounts for Bechtel Holdings, covering the year to 31 December 2001, show that it made a £38.1m loss (although this doesn't cover recent projects such as nuclear decommissioning). The accounts also reveal that during that year the division received £8.4m from its parent company.

It is impossible to get any further information about Bechtel's finances because it is a private company. Some construction industry sources say that Bechtel uses this to its advantage. If a project goes financially wrong then Bechtel can keep this to itself; no current or future client ever need know if there have been problems. Couple this with its formidable network of contacts at the very top of the political tree, and it isn't hard to see why Bechtel was the first company the US government turned to for the rebuilding of Iraq.

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Las Vegas Review Journal
April 21, 2003

Activist sentenced

Anti-nuclear activist Susi Snyder was sentenced to 100 hours of community service last month by Beatty Justice of the Peace Bill Sullivan for trespassing Oct. 14 near the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

Snyder, 26, of New York and formerly of Las Vegas, was found guilty during a March 31 trial.

In an interview Friday, Snyder said, "One hundred hours is a lot of time, so that's pretty tough. But at the same time at least I'm not in jail."

Snyder, who has been arrested many times for trespassing during anti-nuclear demonstrations at the Nevada Test Site, said she will continue to protest the government's plans to build and operate a repository in the mountain for the nation's spent nuclear fuel and highly radioactive wastes.

"I'll continue to go back to Nevada and continue to do everything I can to stop Yucca Mountain from opening," said Snyder, who is traveling to Geneva this week to represent the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom at a nuclear nonproliferation conference.

In all, 28 protesters were arrested on trespassing charges during the Oct. 14 Action for Nuclear Abolition, an event sponsored by anti-nuclear groups that targeted activities at Yucca Mountain and the test site.

Charges were dropped for all but six.

Sullivan accepted plea bargains from four to perform 100 hours of community service in their hometowns.

One demonstrator, Kevin Kamps, pleaded no contest, and Snyder was found guilty.

Keith Rogers

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Middletown Times Herald Record
April 21, 2003

Indian Point is part of a dirty, dangerous fuel cycle

By Marilyn Elie

A great deal has been written lately about the "clean" electricity generated by the nuclear reactors at Indian Point. Generally, that means the nuclear plant does not generate much in the way of greenhouse gases. However, Indian Point sits squarely in the middle of the nuclear fuel cycle. In order to appreciate the full impact of nuclear energy, you have to understand the whole fuel cycle.

Uranium ore in this country is mined on American Indian land. The process is not healthy for either the people or their land. The federal government controls uranium mining. It is subsidized, and the environmental laws that would apply to private industry do not apply to the federal government.

After mining, the low-grade ore is shipped to an enriching facility. This process makes it function better in the reactor. It also requires a lot of electricity, so much so that each enriching plant has its own coal-fired generator. These coal plants release huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

After processing, the rods are trucked to Indian Point. The rods arrive with no visible sign of the pollution they have engendered. They are loaded into the reactor, where nuclear fission is used to generate heat to boil the water to produce some of the electricity used in Westchester and New York City. The rods last for about six years and then have to be replaced.

The fission process changes them, and the used or spent fuel rods constitute some of the deadliest, longest-lasting waste ever produced. Some of the radioactive active isotopes are lethal for 240 million years. This is longer than our species has existed on the planet.

The current proposal is to ship this waste to Nevada and store it on land held sacred by the Western Shoshone. The state of Nevada is united in its opposition to this plan and has many court cases pending to stop the dump.

Spent fuel rods from Indian Point would travel by rail or truck to reach Yucca Mountain. Several routes are under consideration. One plan calls for waste to be shipped by rail from the train station at Croton, just 27 miles from New York City. Another plan calls for it to be shipped on barges down the Hudson River past the Bronx and Manhattan to a port in New Jersey.

Many municipalities in states along the way to Yucca Mountain are opposed to the transportation of this waste through their neighborhoods, across bridges and under tunnels. Scientific studies cast doubt on the hydrology of the chosen site and its ability to isolate the waste from the environment. The Department of Energy has therefore shifted the emphasis from geological isolation to manmade containers or casks as the primary way to keep radioactive isotopes out of the environment. The casks are supposed to be good for about 300 years. No one has yet answered the question of what happens after that.

It has been estimated that Yucca Mountain can hold what is currently in spent fuel pools across the country. Shipping them is a major long-term process estimated to take about 30 years. If we continue to use nuclear power to generate electricity during this time, the spent fuel pools will be filled by 2035, the dump site at Yucca Mountain will be filled as well, and we will once again be looking for a place to store hundreds of tons of high-level radioactive waste.

When you understand the nuclear fuel cycle, issues of morality and environmental justice become very apparent. It is imperative that we stop splitting the atom to boil water and store the high-level radioactive waste on site at Indian Point. It is not safe to move spent fuel rods, and no one else wants them. Hardened on-site storage provides the safest alternative to date.

The plant can be safely decommissioned in an orderly fashion that provides for workers, taxes and alternative sources of electricity. We can conserve, use electricity more efficiently, move toward distributive generation and hand on a clean, nuclear-free legacy to our children.

Marilyn Elie is co-founder of the Westchester Chapter of Citizens Awareness Network in Cortlandt Manor.

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Las Vegas SUN
April 22, 2003

Panel of noted scientists favors developing Yucca in stages

By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>

LAS VEGAS SUN

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Developing Yucca Mountain in stages -- a strategy that would likely include storing more highly radioactive waste at an above-ground transfer station for longer periods of time than originally envisioned -- is a "promising approach," members of a panel of respected scientists said today.

A 14-member panel of the National Research Council studied the issue of "adaptive staging" and released a 200-page report in February that recommended the plan. Two members of the panel further explained the report today at a meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's committee on Yucca Mountain issues. The Department of Energy sponsored the panel's study.

Adaptive staging would allow the Energy Department to develop the underground repository at Yucca Mountain in smaller scale phases. As part of the strategy more waste could be shipped to Yucca and stored at an above-ground "buffer storage" site while the underground repository tunnels were developed.

Nevada officials have criticized the plan as a piecemeal approach that does not adhere to licensing rules and environmental laws. Several members of the NRC's advisory committee on nuclear waste have concerns about adaptive staging. Committee member John Garrick questioned the timing of the DOE-sponsored report.

Garrick said he was concerned that the Energy Department was adopting a new approach to Yucca Mountain just a year and a half before the department applies for a license to construct it.

The advantages of adaptive staging would allow the department to prevent large-scale development errors that would be expensive to correct and allow the department to use the very latest scientific discoveries, advocates said.

"It's a good idea to take a step-by-step approach and recognize that flexibility is a virtue," said Thomas Isaacs, a member of the research panel.

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Las Vegas SUN
April 22, 2003

Utah argues against plan for reduced Goshute nuclear storage

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - State attorneys have urged federal regulators to reject a consortium's cutback proposal for storing nuclear waste at the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation in western Utah.

Private Fuel Storage, the utility consortium behind the proposal, is proposing to store 336 casks of nuclear waste instead of the 4,000 originally planned.

PFS is "desperately seeking approval for any license it can get," the state argued Monday in papers filed with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The state's lawyers, led by Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor and Special Assistant Attorney General Connie Nakahara, focused on the financial concerns that would be raised by allowing PFS to proceed with the 336-cask proposal.

They questioned whether PFS could store enough waste to finance the facility's construction, operation and decommissioning.

"In sum, the entire underpinning of PFS's financial assurance has collapsed and must be evaluated anew," they said.

PFS is seeking a license to build an aboveground storage site for used nuclear rods that are awaiting permanent disposal elsewhere, presumably in the government's underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

As originally planned, the facility would be big enough to hold 44,000 tons of high-level waste.

The licensing board ruled last month hat the waste-facility proposal could not go forward because of the risk that an F-16 might crash into the site. Skull Valley is on the main route between Hill Air Force Base and the Utah Test and Training Range.

In response, PFS asked the board to reassess the aircraft-crash analysis and allow the consortium to begin an in-depth review intended to show that the consequences of a jet fighter crash would be insignificant since the storage casks would be so strong.

Although PFS intends ultimately to prove its facility will be safe at its 4,000-cask size, it wants the licensing board to grant a temporary license based on a smaller-size, lower-risk facility.

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Casper Star-Tribune
April 22, 2003

State argues against PFS plan for reduced storage facility

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - State attorneys have urged federal regulators to reject a consortium's cutback proposal for storing nuclear waste at the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation in western Utah.

Private Fuel Storage, the utility consortium behind the proposal, is proposing to store 336 casks of nuclear waste instead of the 4,000 originally planned.

PFS is ''desperately seeking approval for any license it can get,'' the state argued Monday in papers filed with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

They questioned whether PFS could store enough waste to finance the facility's construction, operation and decommissioning.

''In sum, the entire underpinning of PFS's financial assurance has collapsed and must be evaluated anew,'' they said.

As originally planned, the facility would be big enough to hold 44,000 tons of high-level waste.

Although PFS intends ultimately to prove its facility will be safe at its 4,000-cask size, it wants the licensing board to grant a temporary license based on a smaller-size, lower-risk facility.

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Salt Lake Tribune
April 22, 2003

Lawyers Advise Tossing PFS Plan

By Judy Fahys

The Salt Lake Tribune

Lawyers for the state of Utah told federal regulators Monday they should toss out a proposal for temporarily shrinking the nuclear-waste storage project at Skull Valley.

Private Fuel Storage (PFS), the utility consortium behind the proposal, is trying to "make an illegal end run" around regulators, the state's attorneys said. And, by proposing to store 336 casks of nuclear waste instead the 4,000 originally planned, the consortium will flop financially, they charge.

PFS is "desperately seeking approval for any license it can get," the state's lawyers contend in papers filed with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The latest flurry of administrative briefs comes two weeks after PFS asked the licensing board to reconsider its waste-storage plans on a smaller scale in hopes of getting a license to begin work on the $3.1 billion facility.

PFS is seeking a license to build an above-ground, open-air parking lot for used nuclear rods that are awaiting permanent disposal elsewhere, presumably in the government's underground repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

As originally planned, the facility would be big enough to hold 44,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste, the dangerously radioactive leftovers from operations at 109 commercial nuclear plants in the United States.

Nuclear plants, mostly in the East and Midwest, are eager to move the waste away from the plants, where the waste is currently stored.

The licensing board threw an obstacle in PFS's path last month, ruling that the waste-facility proposal could not go forward because the risk was too great that an F-16 might crash into the site. Thousands of jet fighters fly over Skull Valley each year on the main route between Hill Air Force Base in Weber County and the Utah Test and Training Range.

On March 10, the board rejected a novel mathematical formula PFS used to estimate the crash risk. The formula was based on the assumption that an F-16 pilot could steer a faltering jet away from the waste site.

Although PFS intends ultimately to prove its facility will be safe at its 4,000-cask size, it wanted the licensing board to grant a temporary license based on a smaller-sized -- thus, lower risk -- facility.

The board also heard Monday from the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for which the licensing board works. Staff agreed it would be illegal to simply reconsider PFS's existing application with fewer casks, but suggested an alternative procedure that might allow PFS to go forward with its smaller-scale plans.

A decision on the arguments from all three sides -- the consortium, the state and the NRC staff -- is expected next week.

They noted that one responsibility of federal nuclear regulators is to make sure the company remains financially viable through the project's projected life of 40 years.

A key factor is whether PFS can store enough power plant waste to finance the facility's construction, operation and decommissioning. Most of this information is private -- and still the subject of a separate, pending licensing board decision -- so the state was limited in the details of its argument.

Still, they asserted: "In sum, the entire underpinning of PFS's financial assurance has collapsed and must be evaluated anew."

fahys@sltrib.com

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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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