Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
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Las Vegas SUN
July 23, 2003
NRC releases revised plan for Yucca licensing
By Suzanne Struglinski
Las Vegas SUN
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday issued its final plan for the review of the Energy Department's anticipated license application for the Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository.
The commission released a draft of the plan in March for informational purposes, not public comment. It had released an earlier draft of the plan in March 2002, with a five-month public comment period, including three public meetings in Nevada. That public comment period ended last August.
The final plan does not set the licensing criteria for the site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel would be stored. Instead, the plan aims to "ensure the quality and uniformity" of the commission staff reviews of the license application documents.
Other federal laws set the licensing requirements, but Nevada has filed suit over the statutes with oral arguments set to begin in later this year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Jeff Ciocco, NRC's senior project manager tasked with developing the final plan, said the approved changes reflect suggestions made through public comment and by the the commission. The commissioners approved the final version on June 26.
Ciocco said a detailed notice outlining the changes and public comment responses will appear in the Federal Register "shortly." In the meantime, a copy of the 472-page document is posted at www.nrc.gov, the NRC website.
The plan still contains sections outlining how the commission intends to review different aspects of the license application. These include the plans for: the site before closing the repository; safety after it is closed; a research and development program to resolve safety questions; and a program to confirm repository performance and administrative and program requirements.
Ciocco said the document now includes graphics and flow charts to improve the staff's understanding and use of the plan and application process.
The final version also contains clarifications on the scope of information needed to authorize the repository's construction, such as guidelines for review of the physical protection plan and material control accounting, Ciocco said.
DOE spokesman Joe Davis called a the plan a "road map" for the license review. He said the department provided some comments on the draft plan, some of which the commission did not accept. "All in all, we think it's good that this is out," Davis said. "It shows that the program is moving forward. It's important to keep it on track." Once the department submits the application, now scheduled for December 2004, the commission has three years to evaluate it and can ask Congress for up to an additional year if needed, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said. If it is approved, construction can begin on the site.
Steve Frishman, technical policy coordinator for the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office, said he sees a change for the better in the commission's tightening of the performance confirmation criteria -- a change the state sought.
Information used by the department to complete the license would have to meet that criteria to be considered valid.
Frishman said in the past there was a possibility the Energy Department could have used the criteria step as a "catch-all" for certain scientific analysis that Nevada feels should have been done during earlier study of the site.
The commission has "closed a potential loophole," Frishman said.
The department and President Bush approved the site's characterization last year, allowing Congress to move on the project. Congress approve the site a year ago, allowing DOE to go forward with its license application.
But on the other hand, Frishman said, the final plan puts a "much more definitive emphasis" on using a process that will pay attention only to safety requirements the commission believes are most important, as opposed to looking at all safety issues.
"It's not appropriate to apply that type of regulatory philosophy to something that has never been done before," Frishman said. "The whole thing should be looked at with equal rigor. We just don't know enough to make those judgments."
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NRC News
July 22, 2003
NRC RELEASES FINAL VERSION OF YUCCA MOUNTAIN REVIEW PLAN
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing the final version of the plan it would use to review an expected application from the Department of Energy (DOE) to construct a high-level nuclear waste geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The principal purpose of the Yucca Mountain Review Plan is to ensure the quality and uniformity of the NRC staff's reviews. The plan has separate sections for potential reviews of repository safety before permanent closure, safety after permanent closure, the research and development program to resolve safety questions, the performance confirmation program and administrative and programmatic requirements. Each section defines how NRC will review DOE's compliance with NRC regulations.
A copy is available on the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1804. Hard copies may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402-0001; telephone: 202-512-1800.
A draft version of the plan was released in March 2002, and public comments were invited during a 5-month public comment period that ended August 12 of last year. The staff also conducted three public meetings in Nevada on the draft plan to solicit comments. Approximately 1000 comments were received.
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Nevada City Union
July 23, 2003
Medicine man tries to heal Earth
Heath Druzin
Though Corbin Harney ran away from formal education as a young boy, people still call him "doctor."
A spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone Nation and medicine man, Harney spends much of his time these days trying to heal Earth through his anti-nuclear activism.
"We the people need to turn things around and take care of what the Creator gave to us," Harney said.
Harney, who has traveled the world with his message, begins a four-day tour of Nevada and Placer counties Thursday with a 7 p.m. presentation at the Grass Valley Center for the Arts.
Beginning life at the northern edge of the Western Shoshone ancestral lands in southern Idaho, Harney said he became disillusioned with the mistreatment he and other Shoshones suffered at his missionary school.
"Girls were poked in the head until they bled, boys were hit on the ears," he said. "I didn't like the school ... so I didn't go to school."
Instead, Harney, orphaned at a young age, chose to flee to the surrounding wilderness with two horses and live off the land.
"I was taught when I was young to take care of life, all the living things," he said.
Harney's activities are varied, with many people calling on him to tend to sick loved ones as well as sick land. He sings to and prays for areas affected by natural and manmade problems such as drought and overhunting. Anyone who wants to can develop similar skills, he said.
"Modern doctors, all they're doing is giving you pills," he said. "Our power is given by nature itself. I'm not a doctor, just a human being like anyone else, but I work with nature."
Now in his 80s, the healer and Shoshone elder has directed his efforts toward an anti-nuclear campaign through his Shundahai Network, formed in 1994 after a protest of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Harney says he is troubled by continued nuclear testing and a plan to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
"The government is not going to tell us nothing as long as they're making money," he said. "Radiation is killing a lot of people. I never did approve of it, and I never will approve of it."
KNOW & GO
WHAT: "An Evening with Western Shoshone
Native Elders"
WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday
WHERE: The Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley.
ADMISSION: Cost: $10 suggested donation at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
INFORMATION:
888-9123
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Berkshire Eagle
July 23, 2003
Rowe is not a dump site
Last we knew, the Berkshires weren't officially designated as a nuclear dump site. But they've become one because the federal government, afraid to raise a political fuss, hasn't followed through on a commitment to develop a safe storage area for the nation's radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. That means that the 533 radioactive fuel rods from the Yankee Atomic Electric Company are still at Rowe, which was shut down 11 years ago, now encased in 16 steel and cement canisters. The lifetime of the containment vessels is 50 years; can we expect them to be shipped to a permanent facility within that period? NAC International Corporation, the Atlanta firm overseeing Yankee Rowe's decommissioning, defends the invulnerability of the storage units. That's beside the point. Radioactive waste shouldn't remain here. It is up to the federal government to make the tough decisions to see that it doesn't.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Cheney drops in for $300,000
Vice president attends $2,000-a-plate luncheon in Bush re-election campaign
By Jane Ann Morrison
Review-Journal
Operating under the premise that every little bit helps, the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election effort picked up $300,000 in Las Vegas on Monday through the efforts of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Bush-Cheney '04 has reported raising $34 million since the start of an effort designed to crush Democratic opponents in the fund-raising arena.
Cheney's assignment Monday was to raise money in Las Vegas in the morning and Omaha, Neb., in the evening.
In Las Vegas, inside the luxurious Spanish Trail home of liquor distributor Larry Ruvo, state finance chairman for Bush-Cheney '04, about 130 people attended the $2,000-a-plate, two-hour luncheon.
Bush-Cheney '04 spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said the event raised about $300,000.
Outside the gated community where Ruvo lives, two groups of protesters sweated in temperatures topping 100 degrees.
About 100 people huddled under trees waving signs protesting storage of nuclear waste in Nevada. One read, "You Dump on Nevada, you want our cash?"
A smaller group, protesting hunger in America and the continuing deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, planted white crosses outside Spanish Trail on the corner of Rainbow and Tropicana avenues and then carried a coffin to the front gate. As guests left, they shouted and waved signs, one of which read, "How Many Hungry People Could Eat for $2000?"
Attendees included Gov. Kenny Guinn, U.S. Sen. John Ensign, gaming executives Don Snyder and Terry Lanni and a number of Northern Nevadans.
Cheney saw neither group, since he entered and exited at the community's service entrance, off Hacienda Avenue.
Citizen Alert Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson said it didn't matter that Cheney didn't see their signs or hear their chants opposing the Yucca Mountain Project.
"Our main purpose is letting Nevadans know it's not a done deal," she said.
The Bush administration is forging ahead with efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear storage site, and recent polls have shown that Nevadans are increasingly in favor of negotiating for benefits if the project becomes inevitable.
The state is suing to stop the project, and Guinn contends Nevada will prevail in the courts.
Johnson said she was delighted with the turnout of about 100 from environmental groups including Citizen Alert, Sierra Club and the National Environmental Trust, as well as the Culinary Union and a small contingency of young Republicans and young Democrats.
Cheney visited Nevada twice before his election in 2000; this is his first visit as vice president.
Cheney, who arrived Sunday, had no events open to the public.
GOP media adviser and political consultant Sig Rogich attended and said afterward it was "a magnificent event."
Cheney spoke about 15 or 20 minutes.
"He was extraordinarily good, talking about events of the world, foreign policy, Korea, Iraq," Rogich said. "There was nothing new he told us per se, but he addressed issues in a candid way. ... He was forthright in talking about where we are at this time."
The news media was not allowed in, and Rogich said there were "no scoops," even if reporters had been there.
Ruvo said Lynne Cheney accompanied her husband. "She was bright and articulate and I had the privilege of introducing Mrs. Cheney, who introduced the vice president."
Ruvo said, "There were so many questions about the world situation and terrorism and he put it in proper perspective for me. Although our casualties are about 300 since we started the war on terrorism, that's 10 percent of what the terrorists killed in the World Trade Center bombing."
Dan Geary, representing the National Environmental Trust, said he thought Cheney denied local news media any access because, "I think he knows Yucca Mountain is a key issue and it's glaringly apparent some promises are not being kept."
Rogich said time restrictions limit public events.
Cheney met with Las Vegas reporters during the campaign but appeared poorly briefed on the state's two major issues, gaming and the Yucca Mountain Project.
Paul Brown, Southern Nevada Director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said the turnout for this protest was one of their best, particularly since it was held in the middle of a work day in sweltering heat.
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Middletown Press
July 22, 2003
Bill includes monies for Yucca
By Matthew Higbee
The U.S. House advanced plans on Friday to remove highly radioactive spent fuel from Connecticut Yankee and other sites around the country to a permanent repository in Nevada as lawmakers approved a $27.1 billion energy and water bill for next year.
Included in the spending package is an additional $335 million for disposing spent fuel rods and high-level waste from nuclear power plants and $430 million for the disposal of radioactive waste from weapons programs. The $765 million total is $308 million above the current spending level and intended to ensure opening by 2010 the federal dump at Yucca Mountain, the remote ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"Our efforts to open the Yucca Mountain repository continue apace," Rob Simmons (R 2nd District) said Monday.
Approved by Congress last year, the storage site is designed to hold 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste in caverns deep inside the rock. A seven-mile access tunnel has been drilled into the mountain.
With the targeted date for accepting spent fuel 12 years past the 1998 deadline set by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Simmons and other New England delegates pressed for language in the bill that accelerates the removal of waste from closed nuclear plants and directs the Department of Energy to develop a plan by the end of next year for shipping the waste across the nation.
As the pressure mounts to open Yucca Mountain, the jockeying for position in line among sites with nuclear waste is intensifying. Under the government´s original plan, the central repository was to accept the oldest waste first. But a handful of nuclear power plants have since shut down and started the process of moving their spent fuel rods from underwater storage into portable canisters that could be shipped by barge or rail. Connecticut Yankee, in Haddam, and Maine Yankee have started, and Yankee Rowe in Massachusetts completed, building temporary dry cask storage areas. Though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will ultimately determine the priority list, Simmons and the New England delegation say fuel rods packaged in shipping-ready canisters should be first.
While the Senate has not yet filed their version of the House bill, New England Senators are also pressing to put the decommissioned power plants in their states at the head of the waste-removal cue. A July 3 letter to Energy and Water Subcommittee chairman Sen. Pete Domenici signed by Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, along with senators from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, express frustration that New England electric rate payers have paid over $1.6 billion dollars into the Nuclear Waste Fund, while high-level radioactive waste "continues to be stranded in the region." It then urges the creation of a pilot program that would test a national waste-transport system using the dry cask in place at sites like Connecticut Yankee.
The Senators argue that such a pilot could demonstrate the feasibility of shipping the waste and address any problems before the DOE ramps up the central repository.
"People in Connecticut deserve to have this spent nuclear fuel removed safely, efficiently, and in a cost-effective and timely manner. They definitely should be at the top of any ‘batting order´ when it comes to permanently removing spent fuel from nuclear facilities," Dodd said Monday.
The House bill also authorized $30 million in aid to Nevada to offset potential economic, health, environmental, or safety hazards caused by the repository, and $65 million for a Nevada rail system to transport the waste.
"This is an important step forward to ensuring the CY spent fuel is removed promptly," said Kelley Smith, Connecticut Yankee spokesperson.
To contact Matthew Higbee, call (860) 347-3331 ext. 223, or email mhigbee@middletownpress.com.
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 18, 2003
Letter: Up the mountain
Street smarts can go a long way, no matter what type of technical age we live in. As I look at the Yucca Mountain project I just shake my head and wonder where is our state's leadership on this federal project. Exploding nuclear weapons is OK but an engineered multiple barrier system at Yucca Mountain is bad.
In the 1970s our state leadership courted nuclear waste storage at the Nevada Test Site. I used to work out at the test site and the site has a history of safely managing nuclear projects since the 1950s.
The House just came up with a $765 million budget for DOE next year, the largest budget ever approved. I know it's not final, but it does shown Congress's resolve to move ahead and see this national environmental policy through to some decision. That decision has yet to be made, so let's see this policy through and allow the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give Yucca Mountain a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
In the meantime, I think our elected officials should look at Yucca Mountain to help with our budget crisis. Let's talk benefits, serious benefits. Let's talk money for our schools, teachers, our university system, new roads and infrastructure. There is a mechanism to discuss benefits but someone needs to step up and start the discussion with the feds and private industry.
Bill Vasconi
Las Vegas
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 18, 2003
COMMISSION SEEKS UNITY
Beatty denied approval of YMP wish list
By MARK WAITE
PVT
BEATTY - The Beatty Town Board flexed its muscle on the Yucca Mountain Project in a resolution requesting funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for improvements like a golf course, gun club, horse stables and a heated pool.
However newly elected Nye County Commissioners didn't follow the same path their predecessors did last fall, when they accepted a similar resolution by the Amargosa Valley Town Board. Commissioners turned down the Beatty town resolution in favor of a unified county approach.
Plans by the federal government to store 77,000 metric tons of high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain beginning in 2010, took a leap forward this week, when the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee recommended spending $765 million on the repository in the 2004 budget. Beatty is 29 miles north of the turnoff to Yucca Mountain off U.S. Highway 95 at Lathrop Wells.
The resolution states, "The siting of the high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will result in Beatty and its people becoming the involuntary, most proximate neighbors to the nation's millions of pounds of deadly radioactive waste as well as the hosts to any mode of transport eventually chosen to move the waste to Yucca Mountain."
Commissioner Candice Trummell said she thought the closest neighbors were in Amargosa Valley. She also had concerns over strong language. Trummell said the county commissioners need to look at the whole county and not have each town pass resolutions. That was a sentiment echoed by Jan Cameron, a member of the Amargosa Valley Town Board.
The Beatty resolution stated the federal government must be aware of the burden it is imposing on the community by hosting Yucca Mountain nearby. The project creates the potential for catastrophic hazards and accidents as well as creates a downturn in tourism and property values, the resolution states.
The wish list by Beatty officials includes:
• A 24-hour medical facility capable of responding to any emergency at Yucca Mountain with free medical care for Beatty residents;
• Road improvements, including the widening of U.S. Highway 95 to four lanes between Tonopah and Mercury and improvements to Beatty Airport;
• Upgrading water, sewer, parks and public facilities, with a new library, and upgrading or replacing schools, upgrading the town park with a heated pool, horse stables, golf course, and a gun club with state-of-the-art equipment.
• Upgrading telephone lines for state-of-the-art service within 200 miles of Beatty;
• A full complement of emergency medical technicians and fire department personnel;
• At least 50 percent of administrative staff working at Yucca Mountain should reside in Nye County, with any new housing needed for workers in Beatty constructed by the federal government;
• Refueling of trucks hauling material to the repository should be at Beatty fuel stations;
• A yearly grant of $500,000 for Beatty tourism and economic development;
• A world-class research institute studying repository performance, reuse of nuclear waste, disposal technologies and other issues;
• Other financial assistance, including a payment equal to current ad valorem taxes assessed in Beatty, adjusted upwards of 6 percent per year.
"I do believe we should ask for a lot of things from the federal government. I just don't know if this is the right way to proceed. I just think everybody is going to be asking for everything, we just need to prioritize," Trummell said.
Beatty Town Board member Rick Wilson said, "This just begins the paper trail so they can't come up and say, 'Well you never asked for anything.' "
Commissioner Patricia Cox agreed with Trummell. She said there are several towns lobbying for benefits, when it should be a united county approach.
"Nye County has done a very admirable job of representing the wants and needs, on a general basis, of Nye County," Chairman Henry Neth said. "I think it's important that Nye County continue to function as it has in the past and represent all of the communities in Nye County, instead of everybody splitting off into splinter groups and going crazy."
Commissioner Joni Eastley, who represents Beatty and Tonopah, said she was hesitant to deny issues important to Beatty residents. She noted the commission had accepted a similar resolution from Amargosa Valley.
The Amargosa Valley Town Board last October passed a resolution requesting a number of programs from the government, including a drinking water system; sewage collection and treatment system; telecommunications including broadband digital, television and cellular telephone; a complete system of paved roads; kindergarten through 12th grade public schools; higher education and workforce training; primary health care; an early warning system within 50 miles; emergency qualified personnel on duty 24 hours a day and economic development opportunities.
Amargosa Valley board members also asked for an end to busing commuters from Las Vegas to jobs in Nye County. In their resolution they asked DOE to compensate businesses at their highest gross income prior to the actual storage of nuclear waste; payments in lieu of taxes equal to amounts paid in 2010 and a royalty to local landowners of $1 per $1 of assessed value.
Neth said when the time comes for the Yucca Mountain Project to become a reality, "There's got to be room for some frills."
Nye County has received $10 million per year from the DOE in Payment Equal to Taxes for the land value of Yucca Mountain.
Nye County's main bargaining points are included in its Community Protection Plan. That plan urges DOE to locate research and development facilities be located in Nye County; ongoing funds for monitoring nuclear waste; transporting nuclear waste by rail away from Nye County communities; the donation of more federal land to the county for economic development; and federal investment in non-nuclear energy, like solar and wind power, along the U.S. Highway 95 corridor.
"For us to have any credibility with DOE and the federal government the things we need to be asking for are the things that are going to directly mitigate the effects of Yucca Mountain," Neth said. But he added, "It'd be fantastic to put together a joint resolution of all the communities in Nye County."
Neth urged officials from Beatty and Amargosa Valley to put together a joint document and add their requests to the county's community protection plan.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 21, 2003
Cheney in Las Vegas for campaign fund-raiser
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney was making a brief stop in Las Vegas on Monday for a private fund-raiser, and groups opposed to burying nuclear waste in Nevada were planning protests.
A two-hour meeting with contributors was scheduled at the home of Nevada's new Bush-Cheney campaign fund-raising chairman in a gated Las Vegas community.
The vice president arrived Sunday evening from Washington, D.C., and planned no public or media appearances before leaving for a campaign fund-raiser and appearance in Omaha, Neb., Cheney press spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said. She declined to say where Cheney stayed Sunday night.
Monday's fund-raiser was at the exclusive Spanish Trails home of liquor distributor Larry Ruvo. Millerwise said it was closed to the public because it's at a private home.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn were among those planning to attend, their spokesmen said. Nevada's Republican congressmen, Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter, remained in Washington, D.C., on Monday, press aides said.
Advocacy groups including Citizen Alert, the Sierra Club and the National Environmental Trust were planning protests near Ruvo's home to call for a halt to plans to bury the nation's nuclear waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Citizen Alert director Peggy Maze Johnson focused on assurances by President Bush and Cheney during the 2000 campaign that scientific studies would be complete before a decision was made whether the Yucca Mountain site was suitable.
Bush and Congress last summer picked the Yucca Mountain site, with the Energy Department still addressing 293 scientific questions.
"They lied to us," Maze Johnson said Monday. "We're asking them to stop until the science is done."
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Reno Gazette Journal
July 18, 2003
House refuses to cut Yucca Mountain nuclear repository money
By Alan Fram
Associated Press
7/18/2003 10:34 pm
WASHINGTON — The House refused on Friday to chip away at funds for building a nuclear waste repository in Nevada as lawmakers approved a $27.1 billion energy and water bill for next year.
By 251-153, the Republican-run chamber refused to cut $30 million from the government´s plan to build a nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, a remote ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The long-delayed dump, which received final congressional approval a year ago, could open as early as 2010 and is eventually to hold 77,000 tons of highly radioactive materials, mostly from power plants.
Under the defeated amendment, sponsored by Reps. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Jon Porter, R-Nev., the money was to have been shifted to alternative energy programs, including research into solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. The bill has $330 million for work on renewable energy, $114 million less than President Bush wanted.
More spending for alternative forms of power is justified because the country needs “over-the-horizon thinking’ to wean itself from its “addiction’ to Middle East oil, said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., a supporter of the amendment.
The $30 million was but a small portion of the $765 million the bill has for the nuclear waste disposal, $174 million more than Bush requested. Even so, approval could have opened the door for a new strategy for Yucca Mountain opponents, who have been battling the proposal in Congress and the courts for well over a decade.
“This is a national security issue. We need to have the waste in one place, underground,’ said Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., who helped defeat the proposal.
The underlying bill, approved 377-26, has $4.5 billion for hundreds of water projects popular with lawmakers, nearly $300 million more than Bush requested.
In exchange, the measure provides less than Bush wanted for nuclear weapons activities. Included is just $5 million of the $15 million the president requested for research into small nuclear bombs that could penetrate the earth to destroy bunkers.
Another provision would rename Lock and Dam No. 3 on the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania after Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which produced the spending bill. Young, 72, grew up in poverty within eyesight of the dam.
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ENS
July 18, 2003
GAO: Make Haste More Slowly on Nuclear Waste Cleanup
WASHINGTON, DC, July 18, 2003 (ENS) - In its efforts to save time and money while cleaning up the nation's high-level radioactive waste from weapons development and production, the U.S. Energy Department is planning to implement technologies that have not been fully tested, the investigative arm of Congress warned in a new report.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) delivered its draft report on the Department of Energy´s $105 billion high-level waste cleanup program to Congress in June. It was released Wednesday by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, and James Greenwood, a Pennsylvania Republican, who requested the study.
Based on research conducted from July 2003 through May 2003, the report recommends that the Department of Energy (DOE) reassess its approach for incorporating new waste separation technology at the Hanford Nuclear Site in southcentral Washington state.
The report warns that a key technical challenge is that "the DOE's approach relies partly on untested methods for separating waste into high-level and low-activity portions."
At the Hanford site, the report states, the DOE is planning to implement such a method "without fully testing the technology - an approach that has failed on other projects in the past, resulting in significant cost increases and schedule delays."
In addition, the report advises the Department of Energy to seek clarification from Congress on the DOE's authority to designate waste as other than high-level waste if a prolonged court challenge occurs. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has initiated just such a court challenge. A federal court ruled in the NRDC case that the agency illegally gave itself the authority to reclassify high-level nuclear waste. The DOE has asked Congress to overturn that ruling.
Finally, the GAO report recommends that the Energy Department ensure that its waste cleanup projects are supported by rigorous analyses, adhere to the best practices in incorporating new technologies, and are carefully evaluated when considering the design and construction of facilities.
The DOE oversees the treatment and disposal of 94 million gallons of highly radioactive waste, a cleanup program the report calls one of the largest in history. The waste - which would fill a football field to a depth of 260 feet - is held at three sites - at Hanford in Washington, at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory site.
In 2002, the DOE began an initiative to reduce the $105 billion cost of this cleanup and to shorten the estimated time it will take to complete by some 30 years. Its main strategy is to concentrate much of the radioactivity into a smaller volume for permanent disposal in the underground repository that has been designated by the President and Congress at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The GAO was asked to determine the status of this initiative, the legal and technical challenges the DOE faces in implementing it, and ways to reduce costs or improve program management. It was produced under the direction of Robin Nazzaro, the GAO director of natural resources and environment.
In his letter to Congressman James Greenwood of Pennsylvania, who chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Nazarro said the DOE efforts to improve the high-level waste cleanup program are "important and necessary" although "the actual savings are unknown at this time."
Opening a hearing Thursday that focused on the GAO report, Greenwood said, "DOE´s high-level waste problem is complicated, challenging, and expensive. It is critical that Congress is confident that the decisions made by the EM [Environmental Management] program will not set us on another path of cost overruns, failed technologies, and billions in taxpayer funds wasted on facilities that are constructed and then later determined to be useless."
There is urgency to move the radioactive waste from the tanks in which it is stored, many of which have exceeded their design life. "Given the age and deteriorating condition of some of the tanks," the GAO states, "there is concern that some of them will leak additional waste into the soil, where it may migrate to the water table."
Yet, the report expresses concerns about the Energy Department's practice of "launching into construction of complex, one-of-a-kind facilities before their final design is sufficiently developed," in an attempt to save time and money.
The DOE's own guidance stresses upfront planning before project construction, yet does not prohibit a "fast track" of concurrent design and construction activities, and DOE "often follows this approach," but it is already creating problems at the Hanford Site, the report states.
Hanford´s 177 large underground waste tanks contain approximately 53 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste from decades of defense production.
At Hanford the DOE is designing and constructing facilities for what the GAO report calls "the largest, most complex environmental cleanup job in the United States," but 24 months after the contract was awarded, the problems are mounting. "The project was 10 months behind schedule dates, construction activities have outpaced design work causing inefficient work sequencing, and DOE has withheld performance fee from the design/contractor because of these problems."
Still, progress is being made at Hanford. In June, the last of the piping between large radioactive waste storage tanks was connected to the site of a treatment plant under construction. Working for the DOE´s Office of River Protection, tank cleanup contractor CH2M HILL Hanford Group, Inc. has been working over the last year to install the transfer route in order to feed waste to Hanford´s Waste Treatment Plant, where the waste will be turned into glass.
“This is an important step in Hanford cleanup, because the tanks are now connected to the site where the waste will be turned into glass,’ said Roy Schepens, DOE Office of River Protection Manager. “Treating the waste is key to reducing the risks to the environment, the public, and our Hanford workforce.’
CH2M HILL will now focus its preparations to feed waste to treatment facilities on upgrading 10 of Hanford´s million gallon waste tanks. As waste is retrieved from several older tanks across the Hanford site, it will be stored in those newer, safer tanks until the waste is treated. The site´s Waste Treatment Plant is expected to be fully operational and treating tank waste in 2011.
At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, high-level liquid waste is generated as by-products from the processing of nuclear materials for national defense, research and medical programs. The waste, totaling about 37 million gallons, is currently stored in 49 underground carbon-steel waste tanks grouped into two tank farms.
The GAO report said that at Savannah River, the Energy Department's failure to test its proposed process for separating wastes into high-level and low-activity portions until after facility construction was complete resulted in cost increases and schedule delays. An attempt to speed implementation failed after nearly $500 million had been spent. The DOE now plans to spend an additional $1.8 billion to develop and implement an alternative separation technology, the report states.
The DOE also plans to save time and money by increasing the amount of waste that can be concentrated in canisters that will be sent to a permanent geologic repository, the GAO says. These plans, being developed at the Hanford and Savannah River sites, have not been fully evaluated, and "cost saving estimates have not yet been fully developed," according to DOE officials quoted in the report.
In Idaho, by 2012, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) says it will have achieved "significant risk reduction" and will have placed materials in safe storage ready for disposal. By 2020, the INEEL will have completed all active cleanup work with potential to further accelerate cleanup to 2016.
Nuclear research and other operations at INEEL have left behind contaminants that are a potential risk to human health and the environment at 26 areas of the site.
At the 2020 end state in the plan, INEEL says, some activities will continue - shipment of spent nuclear fuel to a repository; retrieval, treatment, packaging and shipment of calcine high-level waste to a repository, and final dismantlement of remaining environmental management buildings. These activities will be complete by 2035. Even with these continuing activities, the cleanup costs can be reduced by up to $19 billion, and the cleanup schedule can be completed decades earlier, the lab says on its website.
Some areas at INEEL will have residual contamination after the Idaho Completion Project finishes its cleanup work, the laboratory acknowledges. To protect the public and the environment and to preserve natural and cultural resources, the Long-Term Stewardship (LTS) Program will manage and monitor those areas after cleanup work is finished.
A draft Long-Term Stewardship Implementation Plan has been developed, and is available for download at: http://www.inel.gov/environment/ineel-lts.shtml. INEEL is seeking public comment on the activities outlined in the plan. The comment period runs through August 14.
Read the draft GAO report at: http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/pubs/gao_nuclear_waste_draft.pdf
Visit the Hanford Nuclear Site at: http://www.hanford.gov/
Visit the Savannah River Site at: http://www.srs.gov/general/srs-home.html
Visit INEEL at: http://www.inel.gov
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Reuters
July 18, 2003
US House cuts nuclear weapons, boosts waste funds
WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday curbed spending on U.S. nuclear weapons programs and boosted funding for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump as it passed a $27.1 billion bill funding energy and water programs next year.
The House voted 377-26 to clear the measure, one of 13 Congress must pass each year to fund the federal government. But it will likely face stiff opposition from the Senate, which has taken a different approach in its companion bill.
Overall the bill would be an increase of around $942 million over the current fiscal year, but would slash more than $326 million from President George W. Bush's budget request for the federal agency which oversees nuclear weapons programs.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House have expressed skepticism about whether the current U.S. nuclear stockpile is appropriate in a world without a superpower foe.
The bill would also cut all but $5 million of the $15.5 million Bush had sought to study new, smaller nuclear weapons that could be used to destroy deeply buried bunkers. Critics say they fear the move could spark a new nuclear arms race.
It would also substantially boost spending on the controversial Yucca Mountain project, providing $174 million more than Bush had requested and $308 million more than Congress approved this fiscal year.
The plan aims to site the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas and is bitterly opposed by Nevada, whose senators have generally succeeded in limiting its funding in past years.
The Senate's bill would cut funding for nuclear waste disposal by $166 million below Bush's request and $32 million below current spending levels. But it would give Bush all of the money he wanted for U.S. nuclear weapons programs.
The House also adopted an amendment to stop all transfers of nuclear technology to North Korea, a move that would effectively block the completion of two nuclear reactors being built there by a U.S.-led international consortium.
It has previously approved the same language as part of a separate energy policy bill. The project is considered likely to be suspended soon anyway because of tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, diplomats have said.
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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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