Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, July 2, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
July 02, 2004
Energy Department's document claim disputed by Nevadans
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Despite Energy Department assurances, Nevada officials are calling into question whether the department hit a critical deadline it said it did this week on the planned Yucca Mountain repository.
On Wednesday, Energy Department officials said they had reached a key benchmark with the public release of more than 1 million documents -- backup information about the science behind the repository plan.
By law, the department has to make all of its documents publicly available six months before applying for a license to build the repository at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
State officials say those documents have to be on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site -- the Licensing Support Network.
But the NRC said Thursday that it had received less than half of the documents and noted it will be at least a month before it gets all of the documents.
The Energy Department, though, said the documents were available on its Web site, thus meeting the deadline because the site is public. The site, however, was down much of yesterday and today.
"This obviously can't be the way the system works,"said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.
By sending those documents by the end of June, the department would be able to apply by the end of the year, and thus starting the clock on the regulatory process which could help the department meet its goal of building and opening the repository by 2010.
Attorney Joe Egan, who's representing Nevada on the Yucca issue, said he does not believe the department has met the requirements.
He said the state will challenge that the certification is "null and void" and the clock on the license process should not start ticking. Nevada has 90 day to gets it documentation together under the law once the department certifies.
"They (Energy Department officials) have botched this up to a degree that would be hard to imitate," Egan said. "Where are the documents?"
Attorney Charles Fitzpatrick, who also represents that state, was angry Thursday that the database was not complete.
Fitzpatrick said there was "no landmark reached" with the certification because it appears the department is not done going through its documents.
"They didn't complete everything," he said. "They've rendered the word certify really meaningless."
The state will have to wait for the NRC to appoint someone to handle the pre-license application before officially complaining. An officer should be appointed in the next two weeks.
Department spokesman Allen Benson said via e-mail the 1.2 million documents the department released Wednesday are loaded onto its Web site, and additional documents will come later.
"We are still working on technical documents that we may rely on for the LA (license application)," Benson said. "These would be in addition to the 1.2 million already loaded."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still waiting to receive documents and post them to its own network, which will be used during the license hearings.
Commission spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the commission will have about 500,000 documents available on its network "very soon." The department still needs to send the remaining 700,000. Ganger said the commission expects to receive and process them over the next five to six weeks.
The commission computer system can only index about 150,000 document a week, so it will take some time to get them all posted, she said.
The department has been sending documents to the commission since May 5. The Energy Department section of the commission's Web site was still gray and not available for searches Thursday. Meanwhile, the department's Web site has not been working.
The site went down last night, and this morning, those trying to access it received the message:
"The DOE LSN site is temporarily down for maintenance. We will be back up as soon as possible.The estimated time it will be available is 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) Friday July 2, 2004," according to the Web site.
Those trying to do searches on the site Thursday were warned that some software problems exists so all documents would not be available.
Michele Boyd, a legislative representative for Public Citizen, a group that opposes the Yucca project, said trying to do searches was "horrible" and she received numerous error message Thursday. The group and nine others sent a letter to the department today complaining on the Web site's quality.
"It is impossible for the public to participate in the NRC Yucca Mountain licensing process when only a small fraction of documents are indexed and available on the NRC Licensing Support Network," according to the letter, sent by Public Citizen and other environmental groups. "The usefulness of the DOE's database as currently configured is severely limited. The posted documents are not yet indexed, making it extraordinarily difficult, and for all practical purposes impossible, to navigate the database."
But Rod McCullum, senior project manager for waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said scientists and technical experts he had spoken with Thursday, "have been happily downloading documents all day" and did not seen any problems.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 02, 2004
YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: Internet database missing documents
NRC official says only portion of documents available for posting
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Although the Energy Department this week certified a database crucial to the licensing of the Yucca Mountain Project, only a portion of the documents are available for posting, officials said Thursday.
Energy Department officials announced Wednesday they had put forward 1.2 million documents totaling 5.6 million pages related to the planned Nevada nuclear waste repository. The documents were posted in a search format to an Energy Department Web site.
But administrators at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have received less than half the electronic documents for indexing that will make them searchable and available on a licensing support network for the Yucca Mountain Project, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.
"There are 700,000 documents that are coming," Gagner said. "Our best estimate is five or six weeks, if no problems arise" to make them available.
In May, an internal Energy Department audit recommended Yucca Mountain Project managers improve their document deliveries because the NRC could index only about 150,000 documents per week. The Energy Department began relaying electronic files for processing and posting on May 5.
Attorneys for Nevada seized on the information Thursday to allege the Energy Department was trying to bend the rules to keep the repository project on schedule to file a license application by the end of the year.
"If this is DOE's first volley, it is nothing short of disaster," said state-hired attorney Joe Egan of the Virginia firm Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch & Cynkar.
Egan said the initial operations of the licensing support network removed any doubt about whether Nevada will ask a NRC administrative officer to examine how the department is carrying out a legal responsibility to share its work products.
"We certainly are going to challenge this certification," Egan said.
Meanwhile, Energy Department portions of the Web site, www.lsnnet.gov, remained dark Thursday. Officials confirmed the delay stemmed from an Energy Department request to withdraw 150,000 documents that already were submitted.
Energy Department officials maintained the documents involved homeland security and other privileged issues. Yucca Mountain Project Deputy Director John Arthur asked NRC administrators not to activate the Energy Department's portion until the deletions could be confirmed.
Although the NRC site was not yet ready, Energy Department officials said they posted the 1.2 million document collection to a DOE Web site, www.ocrwm.doe.gov.
In so doing, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said the department met its legal obligations.
"It does comply with the regulations because the documents are available and they are accessible," he said.
When the licensing support network is up and running, it will be the chief depository for millions of documents generated by the Energy Department, the NRC, the state of Nevada and other parties involved in licensing the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
The Yucca Mountain site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, must be licensed by the NRC before construction officially can begin, although miles of repository tunnels already have been carved into the mountain as part of studies.
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KLAS
July 02, 2004
New Concerns Over Nukes Transport Routes
Edward Lawrence
Reporter
There's new information on the project to put nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Thursday morning the State Commission on Nuclear Projects got an update on the dump site. Commissioners focused a large part of their time on transportation. Eyewitness News was the only station there.
The meeting lasted a little more than an hour. Most of it attacked the Department of Energy for misleading southern Nevada residents and not following through on promises to the state. One important issue is transportation.
Joe Strolin is the State Administrator of Planning for the agency of nuclear projects. He told the panel that nuclear waste would come through Las Vegas. The Department of Energy in public meetings has said building a rail line through Caliente would avoid waste traveling through this populated valley.
Strolin stated, "The problem with that is that selecting the Caliente rail route does not preclude shipments through Las Vegas." Strolin says the railroads would determine the waste delivery route -- not the DOE.
After examining state funded studies, Strolin concluded, because of weather and mid-western high traffic areas, the railroads prefer to use a southern rail line that travels through Las Vegas. "That would mean that almost 100-percent of the shipments would go through the Las Vegas Valley even with the Caliente railroad.
Eyewitness News asked Department of Energy spokesman Allen Benson if any of the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain would travel through this area.
Benson, with the DOE, stated, "Can't say and I don't want to speculate. We have made no decision with respect to transportation."
That frustrates skeptical state nuclear commissioners. "It's the uncertainty. A lot of people keep hearing different stories. It's been the DOE's trademark that a story today changes next week or a year from today," said Larry Brown, state nuclear commissioner.
Joe Strolin added, "I think that makes us nervous as a state. It's very difficult to plan when these uncertainties are so great. That has been a major problem for us all the way along."
With that, there are no answers.
Earlier this year the state argued in front of a federal three-judge panel that nuclear waste should not be brought to Yucca Mountain. That lawsuit is still pending. The commission hoped to have a verdict by now. It could come any day.
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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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