Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, December 4, 2003

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, December 4, 2003
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 04, 2003

Security focus of study

Panel to report to Congress on risks in storing nuclear waste at plants

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Congress is directing experts to take a fresh look at whether radioactive nuclear waste stored at commercial power plants could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

The National Academy of Sciences is forming a 10-member panel for a six-month study requested by the leaders of House homeland security and energy subcommittees.

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chief of the panel that oversees homeland security programs, and Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who leads the energy and water subcommittee, inserted $1 million into an energy spending bill for the study.

President Bush signed the bill into law Monday.

"Chairman Rogers believes that the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and the (Department of Energy) have looked at the safety and environmental issues associated with spent nuclear fuels but not necessarily the security focus," said Jeanne Wilson, a staff assistant on the homeland security subcommittee.

Rogers wants "an up-to-date, unbiased, objective study of nuclear facilities security," Wilson said.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cited nuclear plant security as one of the reasons for his recommendation last year to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Abraham argued the radioactive spent fuel would be safer stored in the desert than left at power plants. The NRC and the General Accounting Office have said in recent studies the likelihood of harm from terrorist attack or accidents at nuclear storage sites is low.

The new study probably will not touch on Yucca Mountain, officials said. The academy, which advises the government on science and technology issues, is conducting a study on safety problems with shipping nuclear waste to the Nevada site.

Officials began forming study plans during a daylong meeting of the academy's board of radioactive waste management Wednesday.

Speaking to board members, Wilson said lawmakers are being told by the Department of Homeland Security that al-Qaida terrorists remain interested in crashing planes into high-profile structures such as nuclear plants or stealing nuclear materials to make "dirty bombs."

And, she said, legislators are hearing from vendors wanting to sell tougher nuclear waste storage and transportation casks.

The academy will study potential safety and security risks of spent fuel stored in cooling pools at 103 commercial reactor sites and whether the fuel assemblies would be safer kept in above-ground casks at the reactors.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 04, 2003

Nuke waste security to be studied

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

WASHINGTON -- Security risks associated with nuclear waste storage pools and containers at nuclear power plants will be part of a new $1 million study by the National Academy of Sciences, officials said Wednesday.

Congress included the study in the energy and water spending bill signed by President Bush on Monday. The academy will coordinate a 10-member panel to complete a classified report in the next six months, study director Kevin Crowley said at a meeting of the academy's board on radioactive waste management in Washington. An unclassified version of their findings will be available about six months later, Crowley said.

The country's 103 nuclear power plants all have varying levels of spent fuel stored onsite, waiting to be moved to the final federal storage site now planned for Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more attention has been called to potential security threats on the power plants and storage pools since Yucca, if approved, is not set to open until 2010.

The Energy Department intends to submit its license applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the site by December 2004.

NEI, the commission, the General Accounting Office and other groups on Wednesday presented findings on nuclear waste storage security from previous reports.

"We believe spent fuel is safe and secure where it is now, but you can't argue it won't be more safe and secure in the middle of the desert, 1,000 feet underground," Steve Kraft, NEI's director of waste management, said.

The Energy Department, which wants to move the nuclear waste to Yucca, has long used the argument that moving it to Nevada will reduce the threat of having waste stored all over the country. However, critics, including the state, say shipping the waste to Yucca could create even more security problems.

The new study will not include any security analysis of Yucca Mountain.

Jon MacLaren, Homeland Security Department director of physical infrastructure, said there are no plans to evaluate security of the proposed Yucca facility.

He added that the department and the commission have jurisdiction on the Yucca project so it would be up to them first to initiate a security study.

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., head of the House appropriations homeland security subcommittee, and Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, head of the House appropriations energy and water subcommittee, included the $1 million study in the final version of the energy spending bill.

Jeanne Wilson, a staff assistant for Rogers' subcommittee, told the panel that the chairman is interested in learning more about the benefits of putting waste into dual-use casks, or canisters that can store waste on site and then eventually be moved to Yucca if it opens.

She said he wanted to study to be complete in six months so its results could be considered during the 2005 fiscal year appropriations process that will begin in February.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 04, 2003

Security of stored nuke waste at reactors to get new study

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Congress is directing experts to take a fresh look at whether radioactive nuclear waste stored at commercial power plants could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

The National Academy of Sciences is forming a 10-member panel for a six-month study requested by the leaders of House homeland security and energy subcommittees.

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chief of the panel overseeing homeland security programs, and Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who leads the energy and water subcommittee, inserted $1 million for the study into an energy spending bill that President Bush signed into law Monday.

Rogers believes that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Energy Department looked at the safety and environmental issues associated with spent nuclear fuels, but not necessarily at security, said Jeanne Wilson, a staff assistant on the homeland security subcommittee.

Rogers wants "an up-to-date, unbiased, objective study of nuclear facilities security," Wilson said Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cited nuclear plant security a reason for his recommendation last year to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Bush endorsed the recommendation and Congress in July 2002 approved building the repository.

The Energy Department wants to begin entombing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste beginning in 2010. It is preparing to submit an operating license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2004. Nevada is fighting the plan in federal court.

Officials began forming study plans during a daylong meeting of the academy's board of radioactive waste management Wednesday.

She said legislators are hearing from vendors wanting to sell tougher nuclear waste storage and transportation casks.

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

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EurekAlert
December 03, 2003

Contact: Ann Cairns
acairns@geosociety.org
303-357-1056
Geological Society of America

December GSA Bulletin media highlights

Orthogonal jointing during coeval igneous degassing and normal faulting, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

William M. Dunne, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA; et al. Pages 1492-1509.

Keywords: orthogonal joints, welded tuffs, cooling joints, degassing tubes, perturbed stress fields, normal faults.

Joints characterized by networks of 5 to 10 mm diameter half-tubes, occurring in exact mirror image on opposing faces of the joints, are the oldest fractures in the welded volcanic tuffs at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Tube-bearing joints are abundant at Yucca Mountain, but rare elsewhere in the world. The tubes provide the vital clue in demonstrating that the joints formed within a month of a massive caldera eruption about 12.7 Ma, and prior to welding of the tuff. During vertical expansion of the tuff, the joints and the tubes provided pathways for gases to escape from the erupted tuffs. The joints are unusual because they formed prior to welding, they exhibit no shear indicators, and have NW-SE and NE-SW trends that are not consistent with the E-W directed extension of the Basin and Range at 12.7 Ma. Analysis of new field observations and computer modeling, coupled with results of previous research, suggest that immediately after the eruption, slip on local faults perturbed the regional stress field, leading to joint formation. Formation of the NE-trending joints and differential compaction in a NW-trending basin caused a local 90º switch of horizontal extension direction, resulting in the formation of the NW-trending joints. Tube-bearing joints are large, persistent fractures that affect the present-day hydrologic characteristics of the site of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

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Indian Country Today
December 03, 2003

Energy bill is omnicide, slow death for Indian people

Voices from the earth, filibuster

by Brenda Norrell / Correspondent / Indian Country Today

ALBUQUERQUE - American Indian stewards of the earth - Northern Cheyenne, Western Shoshone, Navajo, Zuni, Yankton Sioux and Gwich´in - gathered to oppose the U.S. Energy bill 2003, in a press conference adjacent to the National Congress of American Indians´ 60th Annual Convention.

Norman Patrick Brown, Navajo, said "the uranium monster must be prevented from coming through the door." Navajos have suffered from 65 years of Cold War uranium mining, with a trail of cancer and death.

"Nowhere in the world have people suffered as much as my grassroots people," said Brown, Navajo from Shiprock, representing thousands of grassroots Navajo.

"I´ve heard from my people that Sen. Pete Domenici is a friend of the Navajo, but friends of the Navajo do not introduce legislation that can destroy us."

Cora Phillips, Navajo, said the energy bill is omnicide - the ultimate taking of life. It is the slow death of Navajo from uranium poisoning, damaging their life support system and their gene pool. It damages human cells and unborn children.

The energy bill, Section 631, authorizes up to $30 million in grants to uranium mining companies for demonstration projects using the in situ leach mining method, which would contaminate the groundwater, she said.

Speaking on behalf of Navajo President Joe Shirley, Phillips said four uranium in situ mines are proposed for the Navajo communities of Church Rock and Crownpoint, N.M., where a deadly spill has already left a trail of death.

"A cry has to come from all parts of the world," Phillips said, pointing out there has been 16 million deaths as a result of uranium mining worldwide.

The federal government´s message is: "We will find a way to exterminate you."

Urging a filibuster in the Senate, Gwich´in Evon Peter, 27, said Alaskan Natives have been "enslaved and marginalized" by multi-national corporations and the people separated from the land.

He said the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act created for-profit corporations to exploit the land and use the people, leading to the loss of Native land.

Peter said that putting for-profit corporations in control of Native lands would be the same as placing Enron in charge of federal lands.

Ian Zabarte, secretary of state and spokesperson for the Western Shoshone National Council, said for the past 50 years, weapons of mass destruction have been created on ancestral Western Shoshone land in Nevada.

"It is unacceptable that we are bearing the burden for nuclear development," said Zabarte, who postponed law school to carry on this struggle.

The United States´ plan to store nuclear waste on Western Shoshone land at Yucca Mountain would create streams of nuclear waste traveling across America and ending up as a river of waste on Yucca Mountain.

Zabarte said geothermal is not a renewal energy source. "It is the lifeblood of Mother Earth."

Northern Cheyenne Councilman William Walks Along from Montana opposed the federal energy bill and coal bed methane development.

"Our Native people are not ‘crazy trouble-maker extremists.´ They are protecting their homeland."

Northern Cheyenne are surrounded by methane development and the salty water is being pumped into rivers and streams.

Urging Congress to reconsider the legislation, he said, "Listen to our voice from the Mother Earth."

Zuni Pueblo Gov. Arlen P. Quetawki said federal officials come to Native leaders at the National Congress of American Indians, in the pretense of consultation. But there is no consultation.

"They have already made up their minds."

Gov. Quetawki said Indian leaders are "reacting rather than being proactive."

Zuni have learned lessons from their victory of protecting their sacred Zuni Salt Lake from the proposed coal mine of the Salt River Project. He said one week after it was announced that SRP would not mine at Fence Lake, the Bureau of Land Management began the process of leasing lands for oil and gas development.

Gov. Quetawki said if emissions from power plants destroy the purity of the air, no amount of money would help Indian people. "There is going to be generations and generations of illnesses."

Yankton Sioux Faith Spotted Eagle showed a video of Lakota facing off with federal officials to protect sacred places, burial sites and the environment of the Missouri River Basin.

On the Native-produced video of the struggle, Alma Mentz confronts federal officials. "Water is a source of life, without it you and I will die, without it we can not live."

"Leave our water alone. We have been taken for a ride too many years," Mentz said.

Meanwhile, Jodie White, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nations, from Fort Berthold Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota, released a statement of opposition to development of oil on her tribe´s lands.

White said oil refineries are the single largest source of benzene emissions and one of the largest sources of air pollution. The emissions cause cancer, reproductive toxicity, respiratory disease and premature death.

Already coal and lignite energy industries have increased rates of asthma and cancer and an alert issued on high levels of mercury in local fish.

White said air is the breath of the Creator and water sustains life, adding that the refinery would "poison and kill our children, people, future generations and destroy our Mother Earth."

During the annual convention, Picuris Pueblo Gov. Gerald Nailor said the mining of mica clays between Osha and Borrego canyons, N.M. must be halted. Oglebay Norton Specialty Minerals of Cleveland, Ohio, has expanded mining operations and destroyed the Pueblo´s traditional micaceous clay gathering area.

Gov. Nailor said the U.S. Mining Law of 1872 sold sacred places for $5 an acre to corporations and must be changed to protect sacred places.

Sayokla Kindness, Oneida staff member of the Indigenous Environmental Network which organized the press conference, said the federal energy bill places sacred places in danger. It seeks to stimulate domestic energy production by providing $16 billion in tax breaks to increase oil, coal, nuclear and electricity production.

The bill also allows energy-resource tribes to enter into resource agreements that would undermine crucial federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historical Protection Act, she 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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