Yucca Mountain News Clips - Monday, November 10, 2003

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, November 10, 2003
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Las Vegas SUN
November 10, 2003

Study sums up questions on nuke effects on Yucca

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN

WASHINGTON --- Yucca Mountain's geologic makeup can help absorb some radioactive materials from nuclear waste, but more research is needed on how the overall temperature of the proposed storage site affects the absorption rate, a new study says.

In an article published today in American Mineralogist, the journal of the Mineralogical Society of America, David Bish, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist, writes about the mountain's makeup of zeolites, a mineral that has high absorption properties.

The study also looked at the site's reliance on man-made barriers to contain radiation from the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste set to be stored there.

"We need to keep that a little bit better balanced, between the geologic barriers and the engineered barriers," said Bish, who is now the Haydn Murray Chair in Applied Clay Mineralogy at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Bish, along with three other Los Alamos scientists who co-authored the federally funded study, has worked on Yucca Mountain research since the 1980s, he said, but some of the information has not been distributed widely.

Bish admitted there is "nothing terribly new" in the study. It is a compilation of previous studies done for the department looking at the geologic makeup of the mountain. He wanted to put all of the mineralogy studies about Yucca into one place and have more of it in the public domain so other scientists and the public could view it.

All of the authors are no longer working on the Yucca Mountain project and Bish emphasized the Energy Department had no hand in the study. He submitted the study for publication early this year.

Bish said over the last few years there has been an "increasing reliance" on the proposed engineered barriers to keep radiation inside the repository when the original idea was to have it be a geologic storage site.

"We don't have the long-term experience with the man-made systems," Bish said, adding that the rock makeup has been studied a lot.

He does not take a position on whether the waste should be stored in Nevada.

"I'd like to know more about how introduction of a repository into the mountain will change the geology, mineralogy and hydrology, all of which will affect the ability of the mountain to contain the waste," Bish said. "We also need to know more about how water flows through the repository horizon, a zone of rock into which the waste would be placed."

The paper could be used in the licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Energy Department anticipates submitting its license application in December 2004.

In the study, Bish and his coauthors studied drilled portions of rock to look at natural zeolites, or minerals in the rock with this absorbent qualities.

"Although it is a common perception that highly absorbing minerals have the ability to stop the movement of radionuclues in groundwater via cation exchange, minerals such as zeolites can only retard or slow the migration of such radionculides," Bish wrote.

Regarding potential temperatures inside the mountain, Bish wrote there is no "magic" degree "below which zeolites will be unaffected."

Although much of the information was known to those that follow the intricacies of the Yucca Mountain project, is was unclear if or how the study will affect the outcome.

"(The study) is about the effect of high temperatures due to the repository on zeolites and how these temperature effects in turn affect the overall chemistry of the rock and hence its ability to transport or retain radionuclides," according to an email from Rod McCullum, a senior project manager at the Nuclear Energy Institute, after reading the study.

"In this regard, the paper concludes that these temperature effects are important -- but doesn't conclude whether its important in a good way or a bad way."

"At this point, it is impossible to say what the impact of this study will be on Yucca Mountain," McCullum wrote.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 10, 2003

Study cites natural deposits in Yucca Mountain as barrier

But repository opponents counter absorbent zeolites won't outlast decaying nuclear waste

By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal

The same stuff in kitty litter that absorbs the ammonia smell of cat urine might serve as a natural safety net to trap some toxic remnants of nuclear waste should they escape from the planned Yucca Mountain repository.

That's one of the conclusions of a team of scientists led by Indiana University mineralogy professor David Bish, who reports in a respected scientific journal today that rock layers below the disposal site are rich in zeolites. The material is the fine, tan-colored grains used in many brands of cat litter.

Perhaps more importantly, zeolite deposits also could act like giant sponges to absorb and release large amounts of water moving through the mountain. This would in turn buffer heat from the repository, making it more conducive for safe storage of the waste.

Bish and colleagues at the Los Alamos, N.M., national laboratory formed their insights after analyzing more than 2,000 samples that were used to make a three-dimensional picture of the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Their federally funded study, he predicts, will be cited in upcoming discussions by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the Department of Energy applies for licenses to build and operate the repository and eventually receive spent fuel assemblies from nuclear power reactors across the nation.

Early on in the 20-year project to explore the geology of Yucca Mountain, scientists "were interested in zeolites because they would suck up radionuclides," Bish said. Radionuclides are radioactive particles in the spent fuel pellets that would be stored at Yucca Mountain.

"I realized the minerals at Yucca Mountain and particularly the zeolites were important in many different ways," he said last week in discussing the paper that appears in the November-December issue of American Mineralogist.

Among their properties, zeolites can attract the positively charged ions of radioactive cesium, barium and strontium from the 77,000 tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive waste that scientists intend to put there. The material would be sealed in metal canisters for storage beginning in 2010.

Should these man-made barriers fail from corrosion during the required 10,000-year period that the waste must be contained, zeolites beneath the repository floor could prevent some of the seeping radionuclides from contaminating the environment.

"The natural zeolites have acted as efficient retardation barriers to the migration of (strontium)" is confirmed by studies of the rock layers that make up Yucca Mountain, the paper states. The same holds true for radioactive barium and cesium particles, he said.

Bish is quick to note, however, that these particular contaminants will be around only for 300 years as they decay. A zeolite barrier then wouldn't prevent migration of some of the deadly, longer-lived byproducts in spent nuclear fuel that the claylike substance doesn't absorb.

The repository's design, nevertheless, should combine containment features of both natural and engineered barriers, Bish and his colleagues reported.

"I think it's safe to say that in the last five years there has been much greater reliance on the engineered barrier and less reliance on the geologic barrier," Bish said.

He said designers "should not lose sight" that over the long haul, geologic barriers will be around while questions remain about how long man-made barriers will hold up, particularly the alloy canisters.

Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux, a critic of the Department of Energy's repository plan, doesn't see zeolites as the cure-all to potential contamination issues at Yucca Mountain. But he does agree with some of Bish's conclusions.

"I think he's made a case that you can't rely on the canisters as DOE is doing," Loux said.

But much of what Bish's team reports in the journal already has been incorporated in DOE's assessment of how the repository will perform after it's loaded with spent fuel containers, Loux said.

Although zeolites might capture the shorter-lived radioactive materials, Loux noted that two dangerous ingredients will loom in the distant future as the waste continues to decay.

Technetium and radioactive iodine, he said, both have extremely long half-lives, 210,000 years and 16 million years, respectively. A half-life is the time it takes for half of the radioactive atoms in a substance to decay into a stable form.

"These are both very soluble in water, and neither is affected by zeolites. If the material does get out of the containers, the doses from those two alone could exceed the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) standard within a few hundred years," Loux said.

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EurekAlert
November 10, 2003

Yucca Mountain site must make use of geological safety net, say IU and Los Alamos scientists

Contact: David Bricker
brickerd@indiana.edu
812-856-9035
Indiana University

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A proposed federal repository near Yucca Mountain, Nev., for the long-term storage of 70,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste must take advantage of the mountain's natural geological properties, according to a new study by scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The report, published in the November-December issue of American Mineralogist and largely funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, provides the most detailed three-dimensional picture to date of the minerals most likely to impact long-term waste storage. Conclusions from the paper will likely be used during licensing discussions before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.

"The repository must not place undue reliance on any one portion of the storage system, such as the man-made engineered portion," said David Bish, Haydn Murray Chair in Applied Clay Mineralogy at IUB and the report's lead author. "The long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste will depend on geological and engineered systems that are intertwined in a complex way."

Bish and his Los Alamos National Laboratory colleagues also confirmed that Yucca Mountain's rocks are rich in zeolites -- soft, clay-like minerals with powerful absorption properties. The mountain's zeolite deposits, which include extensive layers of clinoptilolite and mordenite, have long been considered a major asset that supports any proposed storage facility. This is because zeolites are known to readily absorb a number of positively charged ions, such as radioactive cesium, barium and strontium.

Zeolites also possess some of the properties of sponges, absorbing and releasing large amounts of water. This water can, in turn, absorb much of the heat produced by emplaced radioactive materials, providing an outlet for that energy. Clinoptilolite and mordenite do not, however, effectively absorb several radioactive ions that are negatively charged or are very large. Bish said that this doesn't necessarily make Yucca Mountain a less desirable waste storage site.

"These zeolites are still one of the most potent natural means of retarding the movement of radioactive ions through rock," Bish said.

Bish also said that understanding the complex geological and mineralogical features of Yucca Mountain is vital to modeling the long-term performance of any storage facility that's built there. And although the sponge-like properties of Yucca Mountain minerals are desirable for a radioactive waste repository, Bish said a facility that successfully prevents waste migration will require a combination of man-made safeguards and the mountain's natural features.

The researchers took more than 2,000 samples from 17 cored holes across Yucca Mountain, at depths ranging from 20 to 1,800 meters below the surface. They performed X-ray diffraction studies of each sample. Bish and his colleagues found zeolites are widespread at many depths, but perhaps most importantly, are abundant at a depth considered highly ideal for waste storage -- 300 meters below the mountain surface and 150 meters above the water table. A waste containment area would be built above this zeolitic safety net.

Yucca Mountain is located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, near the DOE's Nevada Test Site. It was initially suggested as a possible high-level radioactive waste repository in the late 1970s. Congress approved the site for waste storage in July 2002. DOE representatives are expected to approach the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2004 to acquire three federal licenses: one for facility construction, another permitting the storage of high-level radioactive waste and a third for sealing the repository.

"Because the work presented in our paper provides the most comprehensive, three-dimensional mineralogical picture of Yucca Mountain, we believe the paper will probably be used in licensing deliberations," Bish said.

If all goes according to proponents' plans, the Yucca Mountain site could begin receiving radioactive waste as early as 2010. Many obstacles exist, however, that will likely delay the transportation of waste. Many states object to the transportation of radioactive waste across their borders. Also, the state of Nevada contests scientists' claim that Yucca Mountain is geologically satisfactory for the purposes of high-level radioactive waste storage.

###

Some funding for the study came from other DOE sources. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists David Vaniman, Steve Chipera and William Carey were coauthors of the report.

To speak with Prof. Bish, contact David Bricker at 812-856-9035 or brickerd@indiana.edu.

"The distribution and importance of zeolites at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA" American Mineralogist, v. 88, no. 11-12, part 2, pp. 1889-1902.

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Salt Lake Tribune
November 10, 2003

There are alternatives

I hope Mike Leavitt will take some of our concerns to Washington, D.C., regarding the high-level nuclear waste issues that Utah (and much of the country) face. There is strong opposition among Utahns to both the Skull Valley and Yucca Mountain proposals. Each would inevitably bring nuclear waste directly through Salt Lake City and many other cities across the United States on an almost daily basis for at least 20 years.

Just because the Department of Energy seems willing to only consider a cross-country transportation scheme doesn't mean that people shouldn't have the courage to speak out in support of alternatives such as hardened on-site storage.

I would like to thank Mr. Leavitt for his opposition to the Skull Valley nuke waste proposal, and I sincerely hope he will continue to speak out strongly on this issue. No matter what they tell him, there are alternatives. For more information about hardened on-site storage, which is also favored by people living close to nuclear waste operations, and other alternatives, please see http://www.ieer.org.

Eileen Greene
Salt Lake City

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Las Vegas SUN
November 08, 2003

Congress opts against more Yucca secrecy, plans perchlorate study

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Congress has declined to give the Energy Department permission to tighten its control on information about the Yucca Mountain Project.

House and Senate negotiators drafting the final version of a 2004 defense bill removed a section that would have expanded the department's power to shield certain unclassified information about nuclear waste facilities that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

The defense bill was made public Friday, shortly before it was passed by the House, 362-40. The Senate is expected to pass it next week.

The Energy Department had asked for broader control over Yucca Mountain, a planned nuclear waste repository located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Public interest groups and Nevada officials had protested the change, saying it would allow the department to restrict information about possible security risks to the repository or limit disclosures about shipping routes to the site.

Also included in the defense bill was a provision directing the Pentagon to launch another study of perchlorate, a toxic salt that has leaked from a defense factory into southern Nevada's drinking water supply.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev, who sponsored the provision, said studies now being reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences are out of date and rely primarily on animal exposures to perchlorate.

Scientists discovered perchlorate in Lake Mead about six years ago, and it has been traced to defense contractor Kerr-McGee Corp. The Henderson-based company is working with the state to clean up the contamination.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency recommended perchlorate be treated as a contaminant after being linked to potential health problems.

But the EPA, the Defense Department and other federal agencies disagree over the acceptable levels of perchlorate in water supplies.

The salt, which was made by military defense contractors in Henderson, has been found to affect the thyroid gland, mental acuity functions, and the human body's ability to produce growth and fetal development hormones.

The Pentagon will have until June 2005 to complete the study.

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 08, 2003

Request for more secrecy on Yucca Project rejected

DOE proposal in defense measure removed

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Congress has declined to give the Energy Department permission to tighten its control on information about the Yucca Mountain Project.

Negotiators putting together the final version of a 2004 defense policy bill removed a section that expanded the department's power to shield certain unclassified security information about nuclear waste facilities and factories that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

The defense bill was made public Friday, shortly before it was passed by the House, 362-40. The Senate is expected to pass it next week.

The Energy Department had asked for broader information controls to apply to the Yucca Mountain Project, saying it was part of a security campaign after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The department is developing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Public interest groups and officials from Nevada had protested the change, saying it would allow the department to restrict information about possible security risks to the repository or limit disclosures about spent nuclear fuel shipping routes to the site.

Lawmakers writing the final bill didn't want to change the law because jurisdiction over parts of the Yucca Mountain program will be shifting in the next year or so, a Senate aide who participated in the negotiations said.

The aide said the Energy Department program would move to Nuclear Regulatory Commission jurisdiction when a repository license application is filed, possibly late next year.

"The assumption was that it just seemed to make more sense to let this be resolved when the NRC takes over the issue," the aide said. "We just weren't comfortable with trying to do something for a short period of time."

Energy Department officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., were among the lawmakers who argued the provision should be taken out.

"It was a line in the sand for both Ensign and Reid. They put out the position they were not going to accept this bill," said Michele Boyd, a policy analyst for the Public Citizen public interest group.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 07, 2003

Defense to pay less for Yucca work

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department will pay almost $38 million less for next year's work on the Yucca Mountain Project than originally planned, forcing the project to take more from nuclear power users, according to terms in a defense authorization bill approved in the House today.

Lawmakers authorized $392.5 million for the Defense Department's share of the proposed nuclear waste storage site, planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A total $580 million has been approved for the project for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, after a push by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to cut the DOE's request of $591 million.

Originally the Nuclear Waste Fund, money collected from nuclear utilities earmarked for the project, was to pick up $161 million of the total. The DoD, which also will store waste at the site, was to pay the rest.

Now close to $187 million would come from the waste fund and the balance from DoD.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sat on the authorization bill conference committee and fought to keep the amount low.

"I said, listen, Harry Reid fights for cut in funding in the non-military side, so I made it a top priority," Ensign said.

Meanwhile, efforts by the Energy Department to limit public access to certain information about the Yucca Mountain Project were stripped from the defense authorization bill approved by conferees last night.

An early version of the bill contained language that would have allowed the department to prohibit the dissemination of certain unclassified information pertaining to the potential nuclear waste storage site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"I drew a line in the sand," Ensign said, noting he told the conferees he would not approved the bill with the language in it. "They needed by vote on it," Ensign said.

The Nevada House delegation wrote a letter to the heads of the House Armed Services Committee in July saying they were "gravely concerned about the implications of the proposed changes to the law" since it would give the department "the authority to shut the American public out of the Yucca Mountain Project process."

"At a time when the Department of Energy is pursing the approval of the Yucca Mountain Project license application by December 2004 -- yet still has over 200 key technical issues to resolve -- it is not prudent to exclude any interested party from the process."

Public Citizen representative Michelle Boyd confirmed the language was not in the bill late Thursday.

Public Citizen and numerous other organizations against the project also sent a letter to the conferees calling for the language to be removed.

Meanwhile, the conferees kept in language by Ensign and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. that calls for an independent epidemiological study of exposure to perchlorate -- the main ingredient of solid rocket fuel and a known toxin -- in drinking water to be completed by June 1, 2002.

The study would asses the public health threat of perchlorate, especially in pregnant women and infants.

"We need a comprehensive study to learn how various levels of perchlorate in drinking water affect the human body," Porter said. "The new language will mandate the Pentagon to undertake such studies, an important step toward improving our understanding of how of these chemicals impact humans," he said.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 07, 2003

Garcia seeking bright side of Yucca

By Emily Richmond
<emily@vegas.com>
Las Vegas SUN

Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia went on a field trip Wednesday to Yucca Mountain to find out whether the controversial planned nuclear waste repository could have a silver lining for the district.

"It doesn't mean we're endorsing Yucca Mountain, it just means they have a lot of scientists and outreach programs that we could be taking advantage of," Garcia said Thursday. "I don't know a human being on this planet that would want (a nuclear waste repository) next to them, but if this becomes a reality we ought to get every positive resource out of it that we can."

Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the district, said he accompanied Garcia on the tour because he was curious to see for himself what teachers and students are being told when they tour the facility.

"Given the controversy with Yucca, we wanted to make sure this wasn't an attempt to browbeat people," Orci said. "The tour was straightforward, there was no 'we're right, they're wrong' talk. We were very satisfied with what we found."

But Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, said she was dismayed that the school district would allow students and staff to take part in activities at Yucca without giving opponents of the planned repository equal time.

"I'd have no problem if these were truly balanced tours, but they're not," said Johnson, whose group has steadily fought the Energy Department's project. "They give you great statistics and hype about how wonderful and safe this all is. It's a public relation gig."

Garcia said the bulk of the tour was spent with Energy Department scientists who focused on the geological events that led to the formation of the mountain, as well as discussion of the wildlife and environment of the region. There was 'very little talk" about plans to store casks of nuclear waste inside the mountain 90 miles from Las Vegas.

"Even if you never go into Yucca there's a lot to learn out there," Garcia said. "They have some of the best scientists in the world, I just think there has to be a way for us to benefit from that."

Allen Benson, public relations manager for the Yucca Mountain project, said for several years the Energy Department has provided guest speakers to schools, scouting troops and other organizations. There are also educational tours available for individual school groups and an accredited workshop for teachers.

Yucca officials have not yet spoken to Garcia about the possibility of increasing the Energy Department's level of contribution to the district's curriculum offerings, Benson said.

"That doesn't mean it's not something we wouldn't like to explore further," Benson said. "If (Garcia) would like to have that chat, we would welcome him."

The Yucca Mountain project has 1,500 employees living in the surrounding area, many of whom have children in public schools, Benson said.

"They are active parts of their community and we encourage that," Benson said.

With the nuclear waste repository looking more and more like a reality, it may be necessary for the district to develop curriculum for teachers to use in classrooms to explain the project, Orci said.

"It's controversial, which means our students and parents are going to have questions," Orci said. "It makes sense to educate ourselves on the pros and cons of it all."

Johnson said she would be happy to provide the district with background on what she called the potentially deadly "cons" but has not received an invitation from the district to do so -- yet.

"As soon as they ask, I'll be ready," Johnson said.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 07, 2003

Letter: Many failed to heed early nuke power warning

As an environmental activist who fought against nuclear power in the late 1970s, I cannot help but wonder if the Nevadans of today who oppose the Yucca Mountain project fought with me then.

We environmentalists, generally seen as radical flakes by many mainstreamers in the 1970s, tried desperately to point out the risks of nuclear power. One of our central messages was that nuclear waste disposal would be a huge problem with no good solution. We offered alternatives, many of which continue to be ignored today.

I join with the majority of Nevadans who don't want the deadliest wastes of all buried in their back yard. But if more people had joined nuclear opponents in the 1970s and 1980s, and nuclear plants had been closed in favor of less deadly forms of power generation, this sticky problem would be today of much lesser dimension.

Loretta Van Coppenolle San Antonio, Texas

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KLAS
November 07, 2003

Hauling Nuclear Waste Not Only Issue

Brian Allen, Reporter

Washington lawmakers have removed a provision from the Yucca Mountain Project that banned nuclear waste haulers from traveling through Las Vegas. That isn't sitting well with city leaders. But a nuclear energy expert tells Eyewitness News a greater danger is being ignored entirely.

The idea of nuclear waste being hauled through Las Vegas has Mayor Oscar Goodman ready for a fight; "I will not waiver on this position I will do everything possible as the mayor of Las Vegas to stop it from coming through."

Even those that support Yucca Mountain, such as former Nevada governor Bob List, admit this is a tough pill to swallow. "It would have been nice to have this transportation corridor route resolved and put to bed so that it could be taken out of everyone's concern."

Now over the past 30 years, nuclear waste haulers have traveled over 1.6 million miles and there has never been an accident. But now a voice new to the Yucca Mountain debate says transporting the stuff isn't going to be the tough part.

Las Vegan Dick Jeppson is a former consultant to the Department Of Energy. "I would say it would be perfectly safe and my guess is transporting it to Yucca Mountain is no great problem."

Jeppson has studied Yucca Mountain and says the lack of secrecy surrounding the project is a problem; "My concern is farther into the future it's vulnerable." Vulnerable in the fact that Yucca Mountain's location is no secret. Should nuclear waste be stored there, Jeppson says a terrorist attack could poison the immediate area, and possibly surrounding states, with radiation. A member of Nevada's Homeland Security Commission, Doctor Dale Carrison, says this is another danger, which needs to be considered; "It's a callous disregard for the lives and activities of a major metropolitan area."

This change in Yucca Mountain planning comes as a new survey shows 75% of Nevadans would vote against the project if given the opportunity.

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Las Vegas Mercury
November 06, 2003

Editor's Note: The good fight continues

The Yucca Mountain issue won't go away--just like the thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste the government wants to dump in Southern Nevada.

Sunday before last, "60 Minutes" examined the Yucca Mountain debate, and, all in all, Nevada's position against the project came off looking good. The program featured interviews with Sen. Harry Reid, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and other Nevadans who made good points and delivered several provocative sound bites.

One would hope an in-depth segment on America's premier television news show would capture the nation's attention, prompting thousands, if not millions of citizens to call their elected representatives and express alarm about the prospect of high-level nuclear waste being transported through their neighborhoods. Let's not get our hopes up.

That is not to say, however, that Yucca Mountain is a lost cause. Local people I've talked to lately generally think it's inevitable, that the war is over, that we fought the good fight and lost. But a handful of conversations is not a scientific sample.

I'm pleased to report that a new poll shows a large majority of Nevadans remain committed to the good fight. The poll conducted last month shows 75 percent of state residents are opposed to Yucca Mountain. This is roughly the same as it has been since such polls started being taken in 1989. More important, however, is that 65 percent of Nevadans oppose making a deal with the government to receive financial and other benefits in exchange for the nuclear dump. Furthermore, the poll shows, 66 percent of Nevadans support the state's lawsuits to stop the dump in court.

Indeed, the legal battle is far from over. The U.S. Department of Energy has bungled this project from the start. It has fudged the science, rigged the rules and, when caught in the act, tried to cover its tracks. Nevada lost the political battle last year when Congress overrode Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the project, but the legal arena is different.

Nevada won a legal skirmish just last week. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the law firm hired by the DOE to prepare its license application had a conflict of interest. Turns out Winston & Strawn had worked for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group, for six years before the DOE selected it to work on its license application. Oh, and by the way, Winston & Strawn didn't disclose this to the DOE when it sought the licensing work (i.e., it lied). The appeals court sent the matter back to the U.S. District Court. If the District Court judge agrees that Winston & Strawn had a conflict, the application process could be delayed while the firm's conflict-ridden work is reviewed.

This may seem a minor point, but it's indicative of the cavalier nature of the DOE's approach to Yucca Mountain. Time and again, this agency has exhibited an inability to follow rules, meet standards or handle with objectivity and scientific rigor the study of the most suitable place to put the nation's nuclear waste. Assuming a federal judiciary free of political influence, you have to believe Nevada's array of lawsuits could be successful in derailing Yucca Mountain.

What's more, the DOE still hasn't won the science war. Last week, new questions were raised about whether the DOE's plan to store the waste in metal canisters will work. The independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board warned that the canisters could corrode in less than 1,000 years when they are supposed to keep the waste separated from the environment for 10,000 years. The DOE will have to solve this serious challenge or risk being rejected for a license to open the repository.

Meanwhile, as the "60 Minutes" report emphasized, the DOE still doesn't have a solid plan for transporting the waste from nuclear power plants across the country to Yucca Mountain. This may be the single biggest obstacle the government faces, because the radioactive waste would be traveling through highly populated areas in dozens of states. Protecting those millions of people from the possibility of a tragic accident or terrorist attack is a very tall order.

Furthermore, the DOE is clinging to a disingenuous stance on the importance of storing its nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told "60 Minutes" that it would be easier to protect the waste from terrorists by keeping it in one place. But as Steve Sebelius explained last week in the Review-Journal's E-Briefing, "Nuclear waste will continue to be produced at the 39 sites around the nation--and any new ones that may be subsequently authorized--even after Yucca is up and operating. All the security risks that attend those sites now will persist into the future. What that means is this: In addition to the security risks at nuclear sites scattered around the country, there will be the additional security risk associated with protecting nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain, which is one more site that will need to be protected. The government is actually adding to the security burden, not lessening it."

Some Nevadans are understandably tired of hearing about Yucca Mountain. It's difficult, if not impossible to keep track of everything that's going on. But media fatigue is no excuse to throw in the towel on such an important issue. This war has just begun, and Nevada's prospects depend in part on the public's commitment to the fight. Hang tough.

-- Geoff Schumacher

The Sierra Club is holding a community forum on Yucca Mountain at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Flamingo Hilton. The club's national president, Larry Fahn, will be the keynote speaker. For more information, call 732-7750.

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Las Vegas Mercury
November 06, 2003

Cowtown Chronicles

Pioche

Pop.: about 700

Industry: mostly government jobs, some cattle ranching

Nearest city: Cedar City, Utah (pop. 21,535), about 95 miles east

Distance to Las Vegas: 174 miles

Talk of the town:

Nuclear issues have burrowed a permanent home inside activist Louis Benezet's head. Benezet, a house painter by trade, is the tour guide at the town's historic "Million Dollar Courthouse." But for the past 20 years, his chief concern has been nuclear testing and waste. In fact, on Monday, Benezet went another round with the Lincoln County Commission. Newspapers have been hububbing about how Lincoln, Esmeralda and Nye counties and the city of Caliente (in Lincoln) are teaming up to study transportation routes, including a rail-to-road transfer hub in Caliente, for nuclear waste headed to Yucca Mountain. In those stories, Lincoln County has been couched as "pro-nuclear waste."

"I reminded them of their old resolution, in 2001, that the county's position is neutral," says Benezet.

So, that's his news. Benezet admits most people in town aren't as preoccupied with the issue as he is. There are more pressing worries--like eating.

"One of the things everyone's talking about is we don't have a grocery store in Pioche," Benezet says. The last store, called The Grocery Store, closed about a year ago because of financial troubles.

"One of the things that astounds me is, even though we're 100 miles from Cedar City and St. George [Utah], people are still willing to get up Saturday morning and drive over there to do their shopping," says Benezet. "Pioche has suffered because of that."

Benezet says he still shops locally, at the little market in Panaca, 10 miles south. "I refuse to go out of the county to shop," he says. "If it costs one to two dollars more, well, I consider it a donation. I think it's a sad thing to lose local business. When I first moved here in 1980, there were two department stores, two hardware stores and two grocery stores. And the only thing that's remained the same is the number of bars."

Sounds like maybe the town needs those three bars, though, for cryin' in.--Heidi Walters

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Las Vegas Mercury
November 06, 2003

Quick and Dirty: A notebook of news and politics

Yucca yack

Local Sierra Clubbers have been known to bitch about how Sierra Club National, based in San Francisco, doesn't make Southern Nevada issues a priority. But the local chapter's new outreach campaign, focused on re-invigorating the fight against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, appears to have resonated with the national office at last. Perhaps that's because the dump would launch a string of trucks and railcars full of radioactive waste through the nation's neighborhoods.

This Saturday, Nov. 8, Sierra Club National President Larry Fahn will give the keynote speech at a community forum held by the club to talk about Yucca Mountain. Fahn's actually been fired up about the Yucca dump for years, even campaigning against it with Sen. Harry Reid a few years ago.

"I'm going to talk about the fact that it's not a done deal," Fahn says. "I'm going to talk about how, obviously, the project is placing the entire Las Vegas region at risk. I'm going to talk about how it also is a danger to tens of thousands of people" along the rail and truck routes in the United States. "I'm going to talk about the 200 unanswered questions about the science" that went into siting the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Fahn says he'll also talk about how the Bush administration continues to promote a destructive, dirty energy policy instead of "investing in a clean energy future, one that focuses not only on energy conservation, but also on clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind."

The forum is at the Flamingo Hilton, 3555 Las Vegas Blvd. South, in the Virginia 3 Room. There's a reception from 6 to 7:30 p.m., and the program runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m.--HW

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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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