Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
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Reno Gazette-Journal
December 21, 2003
Letter: What´s the alternative to Yucca Mountain?
With the 2004 presidential election less than a year away come the empty promises and half-truths by the outspoken candidates.
When presidential candidate Dick Gephardt (D) made his brief speech at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas [“Presidential candidate Gephardt visits Vegas,’ Dec. 2], he made it a point to show Nevadans his support with the ongoing dispute involving Yucca Mountain. He acknowledges that Nevada is a “big voting state’ and that he has “…consistently voted against Yucca.’ He surely has won the hearts of many Nevadans.
With his opposing votes, what ideas does he have for the storage of nuclear waste? The Yucca Mountain project is now seeking a license to build the storage area after the Senate approved the development of the repository. When a house is built, someone will move in. Likewise, the facilities built at Yucca Mountain will be used for storage, despite Gephardt´s promising words.
Mike Lisowski, Reno
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
December 22, 2003
Utility hopes to extend nuclear power plant's life
We Energies says move saves money
By THOMAS CONTENT
tcontent@journalsentinel.com
We Energies wants to extend the life of the Point Beach nuclear power plant by 20 years, and the utility will ask state regulators to let it charge its customers the $22 million cost of applying for permission to do so.
The Milwaukee-based utility, though, says the fees for the years-long license approval process represent a fraction of the $470 million customers would save as a result of keeping the Point Beach plant open until the early 2030s.
A study by the utility concluded that it would have to spend the $470 million to replace the energy generated at Point Beach with power bought from coal-fired plants or natural gas power plants, said Dave Weaver, We Energies nuclear asset manager.
Monday marked the first time that We Energies has said it intends to seek a license renewal for the Manitowoc County nuclear plant, which generates nearly one-fourth of the electricity it sells.
We Energies and Nuclear Management Co., the Hudson-based nuclear operating company it co-owns, recently completed several studies analyzing the plant's viability, its financial impact and its environmental impact before concluding that license renewal is in the best interest of ratepayers and We Energies, Weaver said.
In an application to be filed in February, Nuclear Management Co. of Hudson will ask that the licenses of the two reactors at Point Beach be extended for 20 years, to 2030 from 2010 for Unit 1 and to 2033 from 2013 for Unit 2.
The Point Beach plant, which is capable of generating 1,034 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 517,000 homes, generated 22% of Wisconsin Energy's power last year.
The announcement to apply for a license renewal comes less than a week after Point Beach became the only nuclear plant in the nation to be cited twice with the most serious safety finding by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the plants.
But the company has fixed the problems that resulted in those findings, agency spokesman Jan Strasma said.
During a meeting last week in Manitowoc, NRC officials said the plant must continue to improve its performance in light of the safety findings. At the same time, they said, a series of inspections this summer found no serious problems that required immediate correction.
Nuclear plant licensees are required to notify the NRC at least five years before their licenses expire if they plan to seek a license, Strasma said. The process will require thousands of pages of documentation and technical and environmental analyses, along with public meetings.
The NRC has approved 16 applications to renew nuclear plant licenses; another 30 are pending, Weaver said.
We Energies' proposal drew immediate opposition from the Wisconsin Citizens' Utility Board, an anti-nuclear utility watchdog group.
"The recent announcement that the Kewaunee nuclear power plant is up for sale shows how unfavorable the economics of nuclear power truly are," said Charlie Higley, executive director of the group. On Nov. 7, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay and Madison-based Wisconsin Power & Light, co-owners of the Kewaunee nuclear power plant, announced their proposal to sell that plant for $230 million to Dominion Resources of Richmond, Va.
Wisconsin Public Service and Wisconsin Power & Light filed an application Friday, asking the public service commission to approve the sale of the 545-megawatt Kewaunee plant.
Concerned about waste
Opposition to renewing Point Beach's license will likely center not just on the plant itself but also on the radioactive waste generated by the plant's operation. Spent nuclear fuel from the plant is stored in dry casks at Point Beach. Because those casks were filling up quickly, the plant received state approval to add casks. If permission had not been granted, Point Beach would have had to shut down by 2005.
Spent fuel is stored at nuclear power plants because there is no national repository for high-level radioactive waste. The U.S. Department of Energy says that the waste can be stored safely at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the approval process isn't complete.
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Senator Harry Reid
December 18, 2003
Senator Harry Reid's Statement On December 18th's Yucca Mountain Press Briefing
Three of Nevada´s leading experts on Yucca Mountain held a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. today about the state´s upcoming legal battles. On January 14, a three-member panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals will hear six consolidated cases brought by Nevada against the Department of Energy´s project to build a high level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Bob Loux, the Executive Director of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, Joe Egan, an attorney representing Nevada in the lawsuits, and Victor Gilinsky, a former Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission discussed the cases with reporters today. In connection with the briefing, Sen. Harry Reid released the following statement:
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“Nevadans stand strong in opposing a nuclear waste dump in our backyard. The fight is far from over and with the excellent team of lawyers we have fighting for the state, I am confident we can ultimately prevail. As battle continues in the courts, more and more scientific evidence is coming forward that proves the site is unsafe and unfit to store tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste over hundreds of thousands of years.’
– Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
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Pahrump Valley Times
December 19, 2003
Flood Control
Tri-Core commissioned for study
Protection for Winery Rod Area Target of Examination
By Mark Waite
PVT
A sole bid submitted by Tri-Core Engineering for a storm water management study on Winery Road was accepted by Nye County Commissioners Tuesday.
Tri-Core also will be invited to submit a bid on a request by the Pahrump Town Board to study the levying of impact fees. The fees would be charged for building new homes and businesses, to pay for infrastructure needs.
Tri-Core, the company that is working on the $1.4 million master plan for the Pahrump Regional Planning District, submitted a quote of $80,000 for the Winery Road study. Commissioners are using money from Payment Equal to Taxes for the land value of Yucca Mountain to pay for the study.
The county decided to commission the examination after devastating summer floods. The study would provide an engineered solution to the flooding and erosion in the Winery Road area, Public Works Director Samson Yao wrote in a memorandum to commissioners.
The request for proposals was issued Oct. 16; the deadline to reply was Oct. 30. Ten consulting firms were invited to submit proposals. Yao speculated the lack of interest by other consulting firms might have been due to the lack of time to complete a submission, or the inability to submit a competitive bid due to a lack of familiarity with local conditions.
Yao added, however, that due to Tri-Core's experience working on the master plan for the Pahrump Regional Planning District, that company could perform the study with the least amount of duplication and expense. He recommended against re-bidding the project.
County Commissioner Patricia Cox applauded Yao's diligence in soliciting proposals as a model for county officials.
"Build us a dam will you?" Commission Chairman Henry Neth joked.
To which Commissioner Jon Eastley replied, "Or an ark."
Regarding the impact fees, Pahrump Town Board members had talked about creating a capital improvements advisory committee. Members of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission offered to serve as the committee. But county commissioners elected to ask Tri-Core to submit a proposal to add a study of impact fees to its list of projects.
Pahrump Town Board Chairman Rick Ewing told Pahrump Regional Planning Commission members Oct. 15 the impact fees would help pay for a town water and sewer system, fire stations, parks, storm drainage and other improvements.
Nye County Chief Civil Deputy District Attorney Ron Kent advised RPC members they would have to do a lot of technical research, like formulating the possible assessments to be charged for new construction and an inventory of capital improvement infrastructure.
"What we have in Pahrump is 20,000 to 30,000 lots have been created without all the infrastructure being built," Nye County Planner Ron Williams told county commissioners Tuesday. "If you want impact fees, put them on the person who wants to pull the building permit."
Williams said the limit of $1,600 per dwelling for an impact fee is a maximum amount only for the school district. There is no maximum impact fee for the county, according to Nevada law, he said.
Yao said there is a pressing need to put together a capital improvements plan, since Pahrump is growing rapidly. He told commissioners the county public works department doesn't have the staff to prepare such a plan.
Commissioner Candice Trummell asked whether the county has to go out to bid on an impact fee study. Commissioner Cox gave the same reasoning for hiring Tri-Core for the impact fee study as Yao did for the flood control project - the firm's experience in Pahrump.
"If we had someone go and do the research they've already done, we're going to pay more than to just have them finish the project. They (Tri-Core) have most of the data to get this in place," Cox said.
Tri-Core has received three new contracts with Nye County in addition to the master plan contract awarded last December. They are preparing a soils report for a $219,000 fee, which has been subcontracted to Ninyo and Moore, and a $69,000 air quality report, which was subcontracted to Enviroscience. The firm opened an office in the Valley Bank Plaza on Highway 160 earlier this year.
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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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