Yucca Mountain News Clips - Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
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Senator Harry Reid
May 27, 2003

Reid, Ensign Hold Congressional Hearing In Las Vegas About Problems At Yucca Mountain

Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. John Ensign will hold an official Senate hearing in Las Vegas tomorrow to investigate continued allegations of flaws with the scientific studies at Yucca Mountain. Accounts from current and former employees, contract managers and experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission continue to come forward revealing serious flaws with studies at the site.

***** Senate Hearing on Yucca Mountain with Sens. Reid and Ensign

Wednesday, May 28th, 2003 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

Clark County Government Building (500 Grand Central Parkway) in the Commission Chambers *****

NOTE: The hearing is open to the public and all media. Additionally, the hearing will be cablecast live on television cable Channel 4 and videostreamed live over the Internet at www.accessclarkcounty.com." Channel 4 is the county's government access TV station. Television stations may record the hearing off air, but should credit either Channel 4 or Clark County.

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Las Vegas SUN
May 28, 2003

Columnist Jeff German: Silenced Yucca critics will be heard

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

The Department of Energy may have thrown Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign a curve before today's hearing on Yucca Mountain.

But it's not likely to stop the Nevada senators from hitting the DOE hard and bringing to light problems within the high-level nuclear waste project.

It is true that the 11th-hour decision not to testify by two whistleblowers who exposed flaws in the DOE's quality assurance program at Yucca Mountain, Donald Harris and Robert Clark, will take some punch out of the hearing.

The home team was forced to abandon its game plan after the DOE persuaded Harris and Clark over the weekend that it would be in their best professional interest not to tell all in Las Vegas.

Their testimony would have made a big splash in Team Nevada's bid to show the country that the DOE can't assure Americans that Yucca Mountain is safe to store the deadly nuclear waste.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft and his film crew, working on an upcoming Yucca Mountain piece, are planning to attend the hearing, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Senate's energy and water subcommittee, where Reid is the ranking Democrat.

Despite the loss of their star witnesses, Reid and Ensign still may have an opportunity to score points with the national media.

Enter Plan B -- bashing the DOE today for trying to stonewall the senators.

"We've got people who are whistleblowers, but they won't testify because they are afraid they're going to lose their jobs," Reid said Tuesday. "That says it all.

"We're going to get the testimony of these people one way or another. The DOE can't Watergate this."

The new strategy isn't as good as having actual testimony exposing safety problems at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But it's the next best thing.

Since the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration nearly 30 years ago, the media has loved a good government cover-up. That's how "60 Minutes" earned its reputation at CBS.

In this case Reid and Ensign now can ask the obvious questions. Why is the DOE afraid to let Harris and Clark testify? And what is the DOE hiding -- a trail of deception and maybe an inability to justify whether Yucca Mountain is scientifically sound?

Nevada leaders have long accused the federal agency of not being straight with the American people about the multibillion-dollar Yucca Mountain project.

By shutting down these two witnesses, the DOE has made it easier for that claim to stick. And it has given Reid and Ensign a rallying cry that will resonate with the national media.

Finally, the battle over Yucca Mountain has come down to an issue that news organizations outside Nevada can sink their teeth into.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
May 27, 2003

Witnesses back out of Yucca testimony

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Two Energy Department witnesses have said they won´t testify at a U.S. Senate hearing in Nevada on allegations of problems at the Yucca Mountain project.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., on Monday announced five witnesses, including two nuclear waste repository program employees who contend they faced retaliation after bringing bad news to supervisors.

Despite being listed to speak, quality assurance auditor Donald Harris said he won´t show up because the director of the nuclear waste repository program was discouraging his appearance.

“I will not be testifying,’ Harris said. “I don´t know what to make of all this, and I have no further comment.’

Reid said he learned that a second listed witness, former DOE quality assurance director Robert Clark, will decline to testify. Clark could not be reached for comment.

Reid accused the Energy Department of muscling whistleblowers and orchestrating a coverup of program flaws.

“They are doing everything they can to intimidate these people,’ he said. “This is no longer whether you believe in Yucca Mountain. This is whether you believe in good government.’

A Reid aide said Clark and Harris remained on the witness list on the expectation they still might appear to speak.

The hearing, arranged by Reid and conducted by the Senate´s energy and water subcommittee, is scheduled for 1 p.m. today at the Clark County Government Center. It will be telecast on cable channel 4 and broadcast on the Internet.

Reid and Ensign were expected to be the only senators attending.

Reid said he will consult Ensign but expected the hearing still will take place if Harris or Clark do not appear.

Others announced to testify include retired Nuclear Regulatory Commission site inspector Bill Belke; Allison MacFarland, a professor and scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the Yucca Mountain project; and Robin Nazarro, study director at the General Accounting Office.

“We can still do some things and raise some hell,’ Reid said, including calling attention to any Energy Department role in influencing witnesses.

DOE spokesman Allen Benson said he had not seen a letter that Yucca project director Margaret Chu wrote discussing possible testimony by Clark and Harris, and declined to comment. Benson could not say whether the Energy Department had a problem with Clark or Harris speaking.

Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen acknowledged Reid and Ensign did not invite the Energy Department to send a representative.

“The witnesses on the list are the people the senators wanted to hear from,’ she said.

Reid said he sent a letter Thursday to Chu asking for Energy Department cooperation in allowing Harris and Clark to appear.

Reid said Monday that he had not received a response.

He said the hearing was scheduled to explore the project´s quality assurance program, which gathers supporting data and confirms the performance of software and computer modeling.

The information is being compiled to support the Energy Department recommendation that nuclear waste can be buried safely at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Harris was a member of a four-member contract audit team that discovered flaws in how quality assurance procedures were being updated in part of the program. The discovery forced managers in DOE and project contractor Bechtel SAIC to take corrective action.

Harris said he was told April 9 by a supervisor for his employer, Navarro Research and Engineering, that he was being removed from audit duties. Harris has said he thinks a connection exists between the audit and the reassignment, which was reversed by Navarro later in the month.

Navarro has said that Harris was reassigned temporarily while the company investigated an allegation he had acted unprofessionally in meetings where the audit was reviewed. Navarro said that Harris was cleared and that he was returned to his job.

Clark was the project´s director of quality assurance until he was transferred to another division in September 2001.

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Salt Lake Tribune
May 28, 2003

Rulings Favor Nuclear Dump

By Judy Fahys

The Salt Lake Tribune

The consortium that wants to store deadly nuclear reactor waste in Skull Valley has the financial wherewithal to carry out its plans safely, federal nuclear regulators said Tuesday.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rejected the state of Utah's complaints that the limited liability company behind the $3.1 billion storage site, Private Fuel Storage (PFS), has no assets and could someday abandon the waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

The board -- the adjudicatory arm of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) -- released its finding in a trio of closely related rulings. The finding was not released to the public because of the private business information it might contain, but PFS did comment on it.

"We are confident our facility will satisfy a critical industry need for temporary storage," said John Parkyn, PFS chairman. "Therefore, I have no doubt we will satisfy the NRC's financial conditions year after year as long as the facility exists, and that we will fully decommission as required."

Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, one of the project's foremost critics, did not return calls for comment, declined to comment on the ruling.

The latest rulings come on the heels of another victory for PFS -- last week's licensing-board decision that earthquakes do not pose a significant risk at the Skull Valley site.

However, PFS still faces a number of licensing hurdles.

The nuclear board has not weighed in on whether a rail-spur that would serve the storage facility might have a negative impact on the proposed Cedar Mountains wilderness.

Nor have federal regulators decided how to handle the company's efforts to overcome a separate, March 10 ruling, blocking the license at least temporarily, because the risk a fighter jet might crash into the casks is too great. The proposed storage site is adjacent to the Air Force's largest mainland bomb-testing and pilot-training range.

PFS needs federal approval to use Skull Valley as a way station for up to 44,000 tons of depleted-but-still-lethal reactor waste until it is permanently disposed of elsewhere, presumably in a national repository planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The waste would be stored in thick, steel-and-concrete casks.

The consortium's 100-acre storage site in Skull Valley would be big enough to hold all the waste produced at U.S. commercial facilities since utilities began generating electricity in nuclear reactors nearly a half century ago. Utah does not have any commercial nuclear plants.

The state of Utah began attacking PFS's financial stability shortly after the eight-utility consortium first applied for a license in 1997. Utah lawyers have said the company cannot guarantee it will have enough money to build, operate and decommission the site.

Details of the licensing board's latest rulings must be kept secret, according to federal regulations.

PFS has said its project will be paid for by the utilities that use it, not with money from the $14 billion federal fund that nuclear ratepayers have stoked through charges on their utility bills.

The consortium said Tuesday that each time spent fuel is sent to the facility, the utility that owns it will pay into an external decommissioning fund that will be used to return the site to its original condition.

Utilities now store their waste in pools or dry casks at each power plant.

Many of those reactor sites are expected to run out of storage capacity before Yucca Mountain opens.

Some utilities say they will be forced to shut down their plants -- and cut off the electricity they provide -- unless disposal or off-site storage is found soon.

fahys@sltrib.com

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Jackson Clarion Ledger
May 28, 2003

Anti-nuclear messenger in town

By Ivan Dylko
idylko@jackson.gannett.com

A veteran anti-nuclear energy activist is hoping to build momentum against a possible expansion of the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Claiborne County.

Paul Gunter, director of the Washington-based Nuclear Reactor Watchdog Project, will speak at two public forums — one in Jackson tonight and one in Port Gibson on Thursday night. He's also taking his message on the radio and TV circuit.

Jackson-based Entergy Nuclear plans to apply for an early site permit for a second nuclear reactor in Port Gibson in July.

Nuclear waste takes thousands of years to lose its radioactivity, and an additional reactor would only add to the stockpile of nuclear waste, Gunter said.

"Grand Gulf's waste sits on the bank of the Mississippi River, and that's not a very good site for it," said Gunter, a Philadelphia, Miss., native.

Grand Gulf plans to send its radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada when the national waste repository begins operating in 2010, said Kenneth Hughey, Entergy Nuclear's senior manager of business development.

"Grand Gulf is one of the safest places in the nation" to work for and live around, Hughey said. "People living near Grand Gulf get more radiation from the sun than from our plant."

The existing unit has been operating since 1985 and employs 441 residents from Claiborne and Warren Counties.

About $8 million of the $20 million in tax revenues from the nuclear plant go to Port Gibson and Claiborne County. The rest goes to Mississippi counties in Entergy's service area.

It may take years for Entergy to decide whether it will be feasible to build a reactor, Entergy's nuclear communications manager, Carl Crawford, has said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 27, 2003

Yucca project witnesses decide against testifying

Senator still expects to hold hearing

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The shape of a U.S. Senate hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Las Vegas was thrown into the air over the weekend after one witness and possibly a second declined to testify on allegations of problems within the Yucca Mountain Project.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., on Monday announced witnesses for the hearing, including two still employed in the Energy Department nuclear waste repository program who contend they faced retaliation after bringing bad news to supervisors.

But despite being listed to speak, quality assurance auditor Donald Harris said he will not show up after he learned the director of the nuclear waste repository program was discouraging his appearance.

"I will not be testifying," Harris said when reached at home. "I don't know what to make of all this, and I have no further comment."

A second listed witness, former DOE quality assurance director Robert Clark, could not be reached Monday. Two sources said he planned against testifying.

Reid on Monday accused DOE of muscling whistle-blowers and orchestrating a cover-up of program flaws.

"They are doing everything they can to intimidate these people," he said. "This is no longer whether you believe in Yucca Mountain. This is whether you believe in good government."

Reid said he learned over the weekend that Harris and Clark will decline to testify. An aide said they remained on the witness list on the expectation they still might appear to speak.

The hearing, arranged by Reid and conducted by the Senate's energy and water subcommittee, is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday in the Clark County Government Center commission chambers. It will be telecast on cable channel 4 and broadcast on the Internet at www.accessclarkcounty.com.

Reid and Ensign were expected to be the only senators attending.

Reid said he will consult Ensign but expected the hearing still will take place if Harris or Clark do not appear.

Others announced to testify include retired Nuclear Regulatory Commission site inspector Bill Belke; Allison MacFarland, a professor and scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Robin Nazarro, study director at the General Accounting Office.

"We can still do some things and raise some hell," Reid said, including calling attention to any Energy Department role in influencing witnesses.

DOE spokesman Allen Benson said Monday he had not seen a letter that Yucca project director Margaret Chu had written discussing possible testimony by Clark and Harris, and declined to comment. Benson could not say whether DOE had a problem with Clark or Harris speaking.

Reid and Ensign had tilted the Senate hearing to Yucca critics and did not invite the Energy Department to send a representative. Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said, "The witnesses on the list are the people the senators wanted to hear from."

Reid said he sent a letter Thursday to Chu that asked for DOE's cooperation in allowing Harris and Clark to appear.

Reid said Monday from Las Vegas he had not received a response but heard from Yucca insiders that Chu had prepared a letter discouraging their testimony.

Two people who had seen the letter and another who had portions read over the phone said Chu's letter, addressed to Reid, said Clark now works for another part of the Yucca program, and "the subject matter for which his testimony is sought is not within the scope of his current duties."

As for Harris, Chu said he is employed by a DOE contractor, and "we are not in a position to instruct or otherwise pressure him to testify."

Clark and Harris were made aware of Chu's letter Friday, sources said.

Reid said the hearing was scheduled to explore the project's quality assurance program, which gathers volumes of supporting data and confirms the performance of software and computer modeling.

The information is being compiled to support the department's recommendation that nuclear waste can be buried safely at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Harris was a member of a four-member contract audit team that discovered flaws this spring in how quality assurance procedures were being updated in part of the program. The discovery forced managers in DOE and project contractor Bechtel SAIC to take corrective action.

Clark was the project's director of quality assurance until he was transferred to another division in September 2001. Clark has said he was told by a supervisor to "take one for the project" after reportedly urging corrective actions within the repository program.

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Las Vegas SUN
May 27, 2003

Yucca project witness says he won't testify at Vegas hearing

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The shape of a U.S. Senate hearing in Nevada was thrown into the air after one of five witnesses said he won't testify on allegations of problems at the Yucca Mountain project.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., on Monday announced witnesses for the hearing, including two Energy Department nuclear waste repository program employees who contend they faced retaliation after bringing bad news to supervisors.

Despite being listed to speak, quality assurance auditor Donald Harris said he won't show up because the director of the nuclear waste repository program was discouraging his appearance.

"I will not be testifying," Harris told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Tuesday report. "I don't know what to make of all this, and I have no further comment."

Reid said he learned over that a second listed witness, former DOE quality assurance director Robert Clark, will decline to testify. Clark could not be reached for comment.

Reid accused the Energy Department of muscling whistleblowers and orchestrating a cover-up of program flaws.

"They are doing everything they can to intimidate these people," he said. "This is no longer whether you believe in Yucca Mountain. This is whether you believe in good government."

A Reid aide said Clark and Harris remained on the witness list on the expectation they still might appear to speak.

The hearing, arranged by Reid and conducted by the Senate's energy and water subcommittee, is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Clark County Government Center. It will be telecast on cable channel 4 and broadcast on the Internet.

Reid and Ensign were expected to be the only senators attending.

Reid said he will consult Ensign but expected the hearing still will take place if Harris or Clark do not appear.

"We can still do some things and raise some hell," Reid said, including calling attention to any Energy Department role in influencing witnesses.

DOE spokesman Allen Benson told the Review-Journal he had not seen a letter that Yucca project director Margaret Chu wrote discussing possible testimony by Clark and Harris, and declined to comment. Benson could not say whether the Energy Department had a problem with Clark or Harris speaking.

Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen acknowledged Reid and Ensign did not invite the Energy Department to send a representative.

"The witnesses on the list are the people the senators wanted to hear from," she said.

Reid said he sent a letter Thursday to Chu asking for Energy Department cooperation in allowing Harris and Clark to appear.

Reid said Monday that he had not received a response.

He said the hearing was scheduled to explore the project's quality assurance program, which gathers supporting data and confirms the performance of software and computer modeling.

The information is being compiled to support the Energy Department recommendation that nuclear waste can be buried safely at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Clark was the project's director of quality assurance until he was transferred to another division in September 2001.

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On the Net:

Clark County Internet broadcast: www.accessclarkcounty.com

Energy Department: http://www.doe.gov

Nevada opposition: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Village Voice
May 28 - June 3, 2003

It's Nucular

Republicans Plan a Hydrogen Economy—at Your Expense

by Mark Baard

On a sunny Saturday morning 30 years from now, you may decide to take your family for a ride to the country. You'll still be driving a car, and you may still get stuck in traffic. But that's OK, because the only thing you'll be breathing in is water vapor from the car in front of you.

Welcome to the seemingly benign "hydrogen economy" President Bush has touted over the past year. Pollution-free cars. Abundant fuel. A cleaner environment.

But there's one factor the president isn't talking much about: the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new nuclear power plants his administration imagines making all of that hydrogen.

The Bush administration and Senate Republicans want to give billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry to make high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), which—theoretically—can co-generate electricity and hydrogen, side by side, inside cheap modular reactors. Advocates of the plants say they wouldn't need the expensive protections required for traditional models.

This summer, the Senate is expected to vote on the Energy Policy Act of 2003, which includes funding for new HTGR plants and the construction of a pilot co-generation facility to be run by the U.S. Department of Energy in Idaho. The bill was sent to the full chamber by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month.

Spokespeople for the committee and the DOE say the aim is to cut greenhouse emissions, since energy companies continue to use coal and natural gas in making hydrogen. But small, modular HTGR plants may do it more efficiently and cleanly, they said.

That all depends, of course, on how you define "cleanly." To extract hydrogen from water—to get the H out of the H2O—you first have to make steam. The modular nuclear plants would do that without polluting the air, but would also leave behind radioactive waste.

Scientists have not yet designed a nuclear facility whose safety and efficiency trumps that of gas or coal. One proposal, from MIT, has a nuclear reactor sitting under the same roof as a chemical plant bubbling with sulfuric acid and hydrogen iodide.

Each modular plant would produce as little as one-tenth of the energy of a single light-water reactor. And since by some estimates the United States would need the equivalent of 500 light-water reactors to produce enough hydrogen, it may take thousands of modular plants to get the same job done.

The nuke industry, not surprisingly, says it's interested in joining the hydrogen economy. Entergy, the second-largest nuclear energy producer in the U.S., hopes to break ground on its co-generation Freedom Reactor within five years.

But only the feds seem willing to pay for the research and development that would make the futuristic plants a reality. "We generate electricity," said a spokesperson for Exelon, the country's largest producer. "We're not heavily involved in funding research and development."

Taxpayers may soon be. The Senate's energy bill affords the DOE $1.1 billion to build an HTGR co-generation nuclear plant at its Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory within 10 years.

The bill also proposes to kick-start a nuke renaissance by subsidizing half the cost of six to 10 new HTGR power plants in the United States.

"We need to move toward clean-air energy sources that are more reliable than wind and solar," said Marnie Funk, a spokesperson for New Mexico Republican senator Pete Domenici, chair of the energy and resources committee.

Renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, are emissions-free. But the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow. Many people also see wind turbines as an eyesore: Cape Codders are fighting plans for an offshore wind farm that would obstruct their views. "And then you've got the bird issue," said Funk. Wind turbines earned some notoriety by killing as many as 50 golden eagles along California's Altamont Pass during the 1990s.

Today, wind and solar proponents are appalled that Senator Domenici and the nuke industry are pushing nuclear energy as a greener choice. "It's disingenuous to suggest that the nuclear provisions in the energy bill come out of a commitment to the environment," said Lisa Gue, a senior policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment program. Gue said the energy bill is a thank-you to nuclear companies, who have contributed some $1 million to energy committee members' campaigns over the past three election cycles.

The Senate energy committee wants to lessen greenhouse gases at the cost of increasing nuclear risks, said Gue. "Hydrogen does offer great potential," she said, "but to use one of the most expensive and lethal sources of energy is a travesty."

Gue bases her criticisms on the risks many people associate with the 103 so-called "Generation III" reactors currently operating in the United States. These are the aging, leaking, water-cooled reactors built before Three Mile Island nearly melted down in 1979. The new plants will supposedly be safer. "But even with their new designs," said Gue, "I'm still not satisfied they've dealt with the waste issue."

Nuclear waste has never been a serious problem, if you ask the industry. "People automatically picture vast quantities of drums, oozing green slime and ruining our lives," said John Ritch, director general of the World Nuclear Association. "But the truth is that all of the waste produced by all of the world's nuclear reactors could fit in a two-story building, on an area the size of a basketball court."

And unlike today's light-water reactors, HTGR reactors—which would be cooled by helium gas—should burn up their radioactive materials more efficiently. The new facilities would then retain their waste for up to 40 years before carting it off to Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Proponents of HTGR also boast that the reactors require none of the concrete and steel containment walls that keep radioactive material locked inside light-water reactors. The uranium and graphite pellets inside HTGR reactors—even if all of the coolant is lost—would heat up so slowly they're unlikely to melt down.

Officials at the Idaho lab hinted at a dramatic exhibit of its pilot reactor's safety. "We could even do a demonstration in which we dump the helium coolant," said James Lake, associate laboratory director. "That would be a way to show the public in a visible way how safe the technology is."

Lake may have trouble selling tickets to that event, but opponents of HTGRs are less concerned about accidents than another scenario: "In a word, it's terrorism," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, a spokesperson for the Nuclear Policy Research Institute.

Existing plants have already been targeted by terrorists, suggest warnings from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Presented with the prospect of a plane slamming into an HTGR reactor, Lake starts adding layers of concrete and steel (and significant cost) to what was once a spiffy little module. "We could put the reactor underground, inside a robust, concrete citadel," he said.

MIT professor Andrew Kadak, who worked on the U.S. government's "Generation IV" Roadmap for new reactors, said his nuclear research lab's own plan for an HTGR reactor does not include robust containment walls. "Most of the reactor, however, is protected by concrete," he said. "And the reactor is mostly underground. If necessary, we could move it completely underground. But we have not done the [damage] analysis yet."

Still, Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, questions why nuclear energy companies and HTGR proponents are seeking free insurance from U.S. taxpayers. The Senate energy bill also calls for the extension of the 1957 Price-Anderson Act, a U.S.-funded disaster insurance policy, to cover HTGR reactors.

"Why would a safe reactor require Price-Anderson liability protection but not containment protection?" Lochbaum asked.

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Casper Star-Tribune
May 27, 2003

Latest federal ruling no help for nuke storage

By PAUL FOY

Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Private Fuel Storage is financially qualified to run a storage site for spent nuclear fuel in Utah's west desert, a federal board ruled Tuesday.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, however, already has ruled the site is too risky because of the possibility of fighter-plane crashes - a finding that could be enough to kill the project.

A final decision has yet to be made by the board's Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

''I feel good about the progress we're making, but we fight on,'' Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt said. ''There will not be a single stone unturned in our effort to make certain it doesn't come here.''

Private Fuel Storage is a consortium of eight nuclear-powered utilities led by Minnesota's Xcel Energy that are running out of onsite storage for spent fuel rods. The consortium made a 1997 deal with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to park wastes on the reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

It plans to appeal the board's risk finding by arguing that little radioactivity would be released if a fighter plane crashed into a cask of solid nuclear waste.

If that doesn't work, it plans to apply for a license for 336 steel-and-concrete casks of waste instead of the 4,000 it originally proposed, saying that would reduce the risk of a fighter jet crash.

It will take its case Thursday to a meeting of the licensing board in Rockville, Md.

The Air Force uses Skull Valley as a flyway to a training and bombing range, but Goshute tribal chairman Leon Bear argues the risks of a jet crash on a 100-acre storage site are infinitesimally small.

He turned the argument by saying the Air Force could pick a more direct flyway to its bombing range and avoid the reservation.

''If these overflights are so dangerous, what about our people?'' he said. The Air Force ''is using our reservation as a driveway.''

The licensing board issued a May 22 ruling saying the storage facility could safely withstand an earthquake - another Pyrrhic victory that left PFS no closer to getting a license.

In addition to the rulings on plane crash and earthquake risks and financial qualifications, the licensing board will deliver a ruling on the environmental risks of a proposed rail spur that would deliver the nuclear waste.

Leavitt, a steadfast opponent of the project, said he hoped that ''finally, reasoning is prevailing. There is a place to put this: It's at Yucca Mountain. Congress has made that decision.''

PFS was organized by Minnesota's Xcel Energy, which says it's almost out of onsite storage for spent fuel and needs a temporary dump while Nevada's Yucca Mountain is developed.

But Leavitt said Minnesota legislators are on the verge of authorizing more nuclear-waste storage in that state.

Leavitt dismissed PFS's project downsizing as ''very clearly a ploy'' because ''they cannot make it work economically at that level.''

The licensing board said it wasn't making public its ruling on the consortium's finances until the group's business partners can submit a redacted version without proprietary information.

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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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