Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, July 9, 2004

<p>Yucca Mountain News Clips<br>
Friday, July 9, 2004</p>
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Senator Harry Reid
July 09, 2004

COURT HANDS NV MAJOR VICTORY

Rules Yucca Mountain regulations not safe

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a decision handed down today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the people of Nevada in an argument to stop the Yucca Mountain project. The state of Nevada sued the Department of Energy claiming a proposed nuclear waste repository would not be safe. The court decided that federal regulations are not stringent enough to protect the public from the significant risks associated with nuclear waste.

Senator Harry Reid and Senator John Ensign released the following statements today:

"Nevadans have won a huge victory today," Senator Reid said. "I´ve never believed Yucca Mountain would open, and today it could not be more clear that´s true. The court´s ruling is a significant blow to the Department of Energy and the Yucca Mountain project and I believe enough to effectively kill the project. There is a reason we have fought this project for more than two decades. It is impossible to open this kind of nuclear waste repository and still guarantee the health and safety of Nevadans."

"Today´s court ruling provides Nevada a crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all," Sen. Ensign said. "Our state´s legal team should be congratulated for this victory against all those forces that would like to turn Nevada into the country´s nuclear dumping ground. Our united effort, in which Nevadans of all political affiliations joined, is the reason for this victory and our celebration today."

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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004

Court rejects Nevada's opposition to Yucca Mountain waste site.

By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Friday rejected Nevada's arguments against building a nuclear waste site in the state, but ordered the government to develop a new plan to protect the public against radiation releases beyond the proposed 10,000 years.

The three-judge panel dismissed claims by Nevada that the Bush administration's plan to build the Yucca Mountain waste site was unconstitutional and said that actions by the Energy Department and President Bush leading up to approval of the waste site were not subject to review by the court.

In a victory for Nevada, however, the court rejected the government standard that the public would have to be protected from radiation leaks only for 10,000 years. The court said the compliance period for the radiation standards would have to be developed well beyond that period.

It was not immediately clear how severe an impact the court's rejection of the radiation standard would have on the project. The Environmental Protection Agency will have to develop a standard that is protective beyond 10,000 years, and some opponents of Yucca Mountain have argued the current design for waste containment does not do that.

While the court dismissed Nevada's key arguments, state officials focused on the court's rejection of the radiation standard and suggested that might be enough to scuttle the program.

"The Yucca Mountain site cannot meet the (radiation) standard" beyond 10,000 years, said Bob Loux, Nevada's state nuclear project director. He called the Yucca project "effectively dead - over."

Allen Benson, a spokesman for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project in Las Vegas, declined immediate comment.

But the 100-page ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was also a setback to Nevada's attempt to block construction of the repository planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas on constitutional and procedural grounds.

The court rejected the state's argument that selection of the site was unconstitutional and that some procedures violated the nuclear waste law - the key arguments made by the state before the court last January.

The state has vowed to continue fighting the case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which must issued a permit for the facility. The site is planned to store underground 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste, mostly spent reactor fuel from commercial power plants.

Congress approved the Yucca Mountain site in 2002, overriding an attempt by Nevada to block the project.

While rejecting the heart of Nevada's arguments, the appeals court upheld arguments by environmentalists that the Environmental Protection Agency requirements for safeguarding the environment from radiation were inadequate and would have to be strengthened.

The court said that the EPA's standard calling for protection from radiation up to 10,000 years "is not based or consistent with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences," which had concluded that the danger to the public goes years beyond that.

In arguments in January, lawyers for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had challenged the EPA standard, argued that many of the isotopes in the waste would reach their peak radiation levels and be most dangerous up to 300,000 years into the future.

The National Academy of Sciences had reached a similar conclusion in an examination of the standard. The court noted that the EPA's own policy required that the radiation standard must be consistent with the National Academy of Sciences conclusions.

"We're absolutely thrilled," said Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Nevada had argued that the process by which Yucca Mountain was selected as the only site to be studied for a possible waste site was unconstitutional. It also challenged a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule on procedures for considering Yucca Mountain as in violation of the federal nuclear waste law.

The panel - composed of Judges Harry Edwards, Karen Henderson, David Tatel - disagreed.

"We vacate the EPA's 10,000-year compliance period," the judges wrote. "In all other respects we deny Nevada's petition for review challenging the NRC rule. We also reject the state's challenge to the constitutionality of the resolution (passed by Congress) approving the Yucca Mountain site."

"And we dismiss the state's petition attacking the Department of Energy and the president's actions leading to passage of that resolution, as those actions are unreviewable," the panel continued.

The Energy Department plans to submit an application for an NRC license later this year, a process that could take three years or more. A recent controversy over Yucca Mountain funding in Congress also has put the 2010 target date for opening the facility into jeopardy.

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On the Net

Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov

Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov

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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004

Panel to evaluate state's challenge of Yucca database

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
SUN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A three-person panel will evaluate the state's challenges to the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project document database.

Federal law requires only one officer to evaluate them.

Using the panel shows the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking the matter seriously, said Joe Egan, a lawyer who represents Nevada on Yucca issues.

"This elevates its importance," Egan said. "It has put a little more gravitas to it."

G. Paul Bollwerk, chief administrative judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, on Thursday appointed board members Thomas Moore, Alex Karlin and Alan Rosenthal to serve on a panel that will hear concerns about the document database.

On Wednesday, the commission appointed Bollwerk to be the pre-license application presiding officer, a position required by law, but gave him authority to delegate the responsibility.

Bollwerk named the three-person panel within the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that will handle "pre-application matters" for the department's planned nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Steve Frishman, technical policy coordinator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said he did not read anything into Bollwerk's move because three-person panels are common in licensing proceedings.

"I don't know whether its good or bad," Frishman said. "But now we'll get a judgment out of three people instead of just one."

The state will today file its official objection to the department's database. Nevada's lawyers have been criticizing the database since last week but a 25-page document expected to be sent to the commission headquarters in Rockville, Md., today will outline all their concerns.

At issue is the department's claim on June 30, that it "certified" a database of 5.6 million pages of documents related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project by posting them on a Web site it created.

Department officials want to file the license application with the commission by the end of the year and commission rules require the documents to be made public six months before the department can file it.

Department officials believe they have met the deadline, but Nevada's lawyers and other Yucca opponents believe it has not because not all of the documents are available on either the department's Web site or one run by the commission. During the licensing hearings, Nevada will have to base its arguments against the project on the documents in the database.

The department has yet to send the commission all of the documents for the official database and is still sorting through documents to determine if some need to be deleted, officials said.

The department will have a chance to respond to Nevada's contention and a hearing by the board is possible, but Egan said the state will not request one.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004

Nevadans told Edwards has changed Yucca stance

By Kirsten Searer
<searer@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN

Several local Democrats expressed concern Thursday that Sen. John Edwards, the newly minted Democratic running mate, supported a bill that helped pave the way for the Yucca Mountain project in 2002.

But they had different perspectives on Edwards' position at an enthusiastic rally held Thursday in Las Vegas to support the Democratic ticket. More than 100 people attended.

While Edwards voted in favor of the project in 2002, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a press release this week saying that Edwards now opposes the project.

Aaron Johnson, a stay-at-home dad, said at the rally that he doesn't like the way Edwards voted on Yucca Mountain, but he trusts the judgment of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who chose Edwards on Tuesday to be his running mate.

"I hope (Edwards) was just ill informed," he said. "I want a good future. I don't want my kids to have glowing water. That is a concern with Edwards, but at some point you have to trust your leader."

John Abbott, a Kerry supporter and Vietnam veteran, said he thinks Edwards is a good choice because of his "charisma." The Yucca Mountain vote isn't as important, he said.

"It was a mistake on his part, but I think he's changed his mind and he's convinced there was not sound science used in the decision," Abbott said.

Pam Coburn, a stay-at-home mother, said she would have preferred Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt as a running mate, but she appreciates Edwards' emphasis on working class issues.

Yucca Mountain, she said, is not a deciding factor for her in the race.

"Personally for me it's not a big issue," she said. "I'll be happy if it doesn't come here. But it's a lot of money that they've spent on it, and they're going to push it."

Former New Hampshire Gov. Jean Shaheen told the crowd on a conference call that a Kerry administration would stop Yucca Mountain. Kerry, she said, has a long voting record against the project.

"John Edwards has joined him on that, so we are going to make sure that everyone in Nevada knows about that issue," she said to cheers.

Alondra Smith, who operates programs for mentally challenged adults, said her biggest concern in the race is the war, not Yucca Mountain. She predicted that the nuclear waste project won't happen.

"I don't think it's going to come through," she said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 09, 2004

Berkley backs choice for vice president

Nevadan delays support until frank talk with Edwards

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- It took three days before Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., came out Thursday in support of Sen. John Edwards as the Democrats' candidate for vice president.

Dismayed that Edwards had voted in 2002 to send nuclear waste to a Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, Berkley declined this week to discuss Sen. John Kerry's choice.

The lawmaker finally spoke up for the vice presidential candidate after a brief telephone conversation Thursday between the two in which Berkley said she did most of the talking.

"It is safe to say he was obviously not my first choice for vice president, so when I heard the news I felt I needed to speak to him before I could give my wholehearted support, although I am very supportive of a change in the administration and a change in the presidency," Berkley said.

Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said he was not aware of any other Democrats in Congress hesitating to endorse Edwards over a specific vote or issue.

But, Rothenberg said, "There may not be another issue at the moment like Yucca Mountain. Politicians out there (in Nevada) are so nervous about it and are so aware of it."

Rothenberg said Berkley in the end has little choice but to back the ticket, "but it just shows you how important the issue is where she had to at least recognize that he was `wrong' on the issue and get it on the record that she was going to talk to him about it."

Brian Scroggins, Clark County Republican Party chairman, said Berkley's hesitation shows Nevada Democrats are struggling to justify supporting a candidate with a pro-repository background. Republicans in the state already are challenged to explain President Bush, who designated Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste burial in February 2002.

"Democrats are trying to make Yucca Mountain a Democrat versus Republican issue, and it's not," Scroggins said. "It's a state's rights issue. Edwards can now say what he wants, but his vote was in support of it."

Berkley said there was no sugar coating on the five-minute conversation with Edwards, who was traveling from Florida to New York with Kerry.

"There was no mistaking what I said," she said. "I told him he wasn't my first choice, so I had a frank conversation with him." Berkley had favored New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson or Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.

Edwards told Berkley the same thing he told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., earlier in the week: He will defer to Kerry's position on the Yucca Mountain Project, which is that the proposed Nevada repository will be scrapped if Democrats claim the White House.

Berkley maintained she would not hesitate to walk away. "If I was unhappy right now, I would not be supporting the ticket," she said. "My credibility is more important to me than my political bona fides. I'm feeling very comfortable with (Edwards). Like I said, I needed to talk to him."

Berkley said she urged Edwards to campaign in Nevada and explain his stance on nuclear waste. She said that would contrast with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who have not discussed Yucca Mountain on trips to the state.

Berkley also chided Edwards for a 2001 vote to prohibit Nevada sports books from accepting wagers on college athletics, an issue she said has since faded as a threat to the state's gaming industry.

Apart from Edwards' vote on nuclear waste, Berkley said the Democratic matchup of Kerry-Edwards "is far better for Nevada than the current administration" on issues such as health care, education, Social Security and small business assistance.

"Just the opposite," Scroggins said, contending Kerry and Edwards "are an extremely liberal ticket for Nevada."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 09, 2004

Nevada Democrats rally with anti-Yucca theme

By Erin Neff
Review-Journal

Democrats celebrated the Kerry-Edwards presidential ticket Thursday by emphasizing opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project despite Sen. John Edwards' vote to approve the planned high-level nuclear waste repository.

Ross Miller, who supported Edwards' bid for president earlier this year, told a crowd of about 150 at the International Association of Fire Fighters hall that "a vote for President Bush is a vote for Yucca Mountain."

"Stopping Yucca Mountain is as easy as going to the voting booth and voting for Kerry-Edwards this November," added Miller, a local attorney and the son of former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller.

None of the speakers told the crowd that Edwards supported the Yucca Mountain Project planned 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. And Democrats are scurrying to get a statement from Edwards explaining his votes on Yucca and his current position in opposition to the dump.

Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Shelley Berkley, Nevada's Democrats in Congress, said Edwards has told them he will defer to Kerry's position on Yucca Mountain. Kerry consistently has voted against the dump and said that if he is elected, "Yucca Mountain will not be a nuclear waste repository."

Democrats are angry at Bush because of a 2000 campaign pledge to base any Yucca decision on "sound science, not politics." The administration later recommended the project over the objections of Nevada's congressional delegation. Congress overrode Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the plan in 2002.

Republicans have criticized Edwards, saying the North Carolina senator lacks experience and that his work as a trial lawyer is "out of step" with Nevada on the issue of medical malpractice reform.

"Our country needs strong and steady leadership, which the Bush administration has continuously shown, not a candidate that chose his running mate based on polls," state Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Democrats cheered the selection of Edwards; Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates called him "the best choice John Kerry could make."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 09, 2004

Nuclear agency admits security lax in gun incident

The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Two contractors carried guns onto a government aircraft at Kirtland Air Force Base last year, according to an internal investigation.

The employees of a company contracted to provide security for U.S. nuclear weapons sites were headed to a security exercise in Las Vegas, the Department of Energy investigation states.

The investigation by the DOE's Office of Inspector General found no evidence of criminal intent.

However, the report suggests it is a failure by the National Nuclear Security Administration to implement tough air safety regulations after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

NNSA spokesman Al Stotts said the two armed passengers passed extensive security checks.

"Everyone who gets on the planes is vetted through our security process," he said.

In its formal response to the investigation, the NNSA acknowledged that allowing the guns onboard was a problem and steps would be taken to ensure it does not happen again.

The airplane was one of a small fleet run by the NNSA. The planes often are used to ferry classified materials and are on call to respond to nuclear emergencies.

A new system for screening passengers on the NNSA flights is being put in place, NNSA associate administrator Michael Kane wrote in a response to the report.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 09, 2004

3 hearing officers named for Yucca Mountain filings

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission´s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board were named Thursday to handle challenges to Energy Department filings on a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

G. Paul Bollwerk III, chief of the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, designated Thomas Moore as chairman and Alex Karlin and Alan Rosenthal as hearing officers for Yucca Mountain pre-licensing disputes.

Bollwerk had been named Wednesday to oversee Energy Department compliance with requirements that it publish documents about the planned repository on an NRC Licensing Support Network.

“Disputes have already arisen,’ NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Thursday. “They will decide how to handle them.’

The Energy Department certified last week that it met a June 30 deadline to post to an Internet Web site more than 1.2 million documents on the scientific underpinnings of the project.

Nevada will challenge that certification before the newly named panel, contending the Energy Department failed to satisfy its own procedures and key NRC rules, said Joe Egan, an attorney handling the state´s legal opposition to the Yucca Mountain project.

“There are no documents available on the (Licensing Support Network) as required,’ Egan said Thursday. “And the vast majority of documents that we know are relevant and key to this proceeding are not available on the DOE´s own Web site.’

If the Energy Department did not meet the June 30 date, it wouldn´t be eligible to apply by the end of the year for a repository operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 09, 2004

Federal officials use stall against Yucca protest

Editorial

If members of Nevada´s congressional delegation can´t make heads or tails of the Energy Department´s safety information on Yucca Mountain, perhaps it´s because someone doesn´t want them to. Burying the opposition in a blizzard of information — needed or not, pertinent or not — is a standard strategy for slowing opposition. The federal government is following true to form regarding the Yucca Mountain project.

Energy officials have known all along they needed to file all documents six months before the self-imposed December deadline. Now, they´ve waited until the last minute and dumped millions of pages in thousands of documents onto a Web site, and no one — not even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission — can tell whether all requirements have been met.

The state, of course, has had to jump a series of hurdles from the beginning — in court and before various commissions to protest storing the nation´s nuclear waste. In this latest challenge, the NRC has put the state´s complaints on hold until a presiding officer for the licensing application can be appointed. Energy gets to keep its head start before the delegation even has a chance to state its latest claim.

The delegation has been at this for a long time. They´re as familiar as anyone can be with the language, the arguments and all the scientific claims. If there was sense to be made of the safety, security and health data or of the legal documents filed for public review, they could do it.

It certainly would benefit the Energy Department to hold off inquiries and requests by dumping all its data at once and at the last minute. They aren´t playing fair, however, when they do this.

Any project of this importance already requires a dense licensing procedure. It is unconscionable that federal officials continue these delaying tactics and deliberately increase the complexity merely to sideline the opposition and to smooth their own way.

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DOE
July 09, 2004

DOE Statement on U.S. Court of Appeals Decision Regarding Yucca Mountain

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued the following statement today reacting to multiple decisions reached by the U.S. Court of Appeals regarding Yucca Mountain:

“I am pleased with today´s decisions handed down by the Court. The Court dismissed all challenges to the site selection of Yucca Mountain. Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain Project is sound. The project will protect the public health and safety.

“The Court rejected the State of Nevada´s challenge to the constitutionality of the resolution approving Yucca Mountain and dismissed the state´s petition attacking the actions of the Administration that lead to the passage of that resolution by Congress.

“While the Court did not question the scientific validity of the Environmental Protection Agency´s standards, it did vacate one aspect of the standard, the 10,000 year compliance period. Therefore, DOE will be working with the EPA and Congress to determine appropriate steps to address this issue.’

Media contact: Joe Davis, 202/586-4940

Number: R-04-145

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Congressman Jim Gibbons
July 07, 2004

Western Shoshone Claims Bill Becomes Law

President Signs Gibbons/Reid Bill into Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-NV) and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), who jointly shepherded the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act through Congress, applauded its signature into law today by President George W. Bush. The bill, now law, settles long-standing claims by the Western Shoshone Indian Tribe by distributing approximately $145 million in principle and interest to over 6,000 eligible tribal members.

“Signing this bill into law today finally ends the delays in the distribution of funds that were awarded by the Indian Claims Commission over 25 years ago and ensures the Western Shoshone will receive the funds due to them,’ stated Gibbons.

"For years, members of the Western Shoshone tribe have been asking us to pass this legislation," Senator Reid said. "Today, their efforts and hopes have become a reality. The millions of dollars in the trust fund belongs to the Western Shoshone and now the money can finally be distributed. We will continue to work with the Western Shoshone nation to do what we can as a congressional delegation to support housing, agricultural, and economic development initiatives that will benefit today's tribal population."

Specifically, the bill provides for per capita payments from the largest fund, estimated at approximately $145 million to over 6,000 eligible Western Shoshone tribal members. It also ensures that future generations of Western Shoshone will be able to enjoy the benefit of the distribution in perpetuity by setting aside the two smaller funds, approximately $1.5 million, in a tribally-controlled educational trust fund. Individual members of the Western Shoshone will be able to apply for grant money for education and other needs within limits set by a tribal-appointed committee of tribal members. In addition, the bill contains a provision to alleviate the concerns of the Tribe regarding existing treaty rights and to affirm the right of the tribe, band, or member to pursue other rights guaranteed under the law.

The claims settlement stems from the work of the Indian Claims Commission, established in 1946 to compensate Indians for lands ceded to the United States. The commission determined that Western Shoshone lands had been taken through “gradual encroachment’ during the settlement of the West, and awarded the tribe over $26 million in compensation. Since the original award in 1977, the total funds have accrued interest and have grown to over $145 million.

For more information, contact:
Amy Spanbauer
Press Secretary
Congressman Jim Gibbons
Phone: 202-225-6155
FAX: 202-225-5679
URL: http://wwwc.house.gov/gibbons/press_contact.asp

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Las Vegas SUN
July 08, 2004

Nevada's anti-Yucca attorneys gearing up for license fight

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada attorneys plan to file their complaints about the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain document database by the end of the week, now that a person has been appointed to handle the complaints.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday appointed G. Paul Bollwerk III, chief of the agency's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, to serve as the Pre-License Application Presiding Officer. The officer oversees the commission's License Support Network, a database of millions of technical documents on the Yucca Mountain project.

Bollwerk has been the chief administrative judge on the board since 1999 and has served on the board since 1991. He was a lecturer on conducting complex adjudicatory hearings at the National Judicial College in Reno.

Attorney Joe Egan, who represents Nevada on Yucca issues, said the state aims to have the department's claim that it finished a required step in the Yucca Mountain licensing process thrown out.

"There is a whole litany of things wrong," Egan said. The state will spell them out in its contention, he said.

The department said last week that it "certified" a database of 5.6 million pages of documents related to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project by posting them on a Web site it created.

Commission rules require the documents to be made public six months before the department turns in a license application. The department has yet to send all of the documents to the commission for the official database that will be used during the license hearings and is still sorting through documents to determine if some need to be deleted.

Egan said the "rogue website" created by the department, which is up now but was not working last week, and the fact the department has not given all the materials to the commission are clear violations of what the rules require.

"The network is a mess," Egan said.

The Energy Department would not comment on what may be filed with the commission but spokesman Joe Davis said via e-mail that any questions the commission asks the department will be answered. By the end of the year, the department plans to give the commission a license application for the Yucca project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, proving it can safely store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste inside the mountain. The technical documents in the database are there to show how the department reached its conclusions.

If the officer determined the certification was not valid, the department might not be able to file its application by the end of the year, Egan said.

Nothing in the document controversy stops from the waste from coming to Nevada but it could cause a long delay.

Egan said million of documents are missing and it could take a while for all of them to be indexed and processed correctly.

"We are not going to let this go by lightly," he said.

Egan said this was not a delaying tactic by the state, which strongly opposes the project. The state's attorneys need to see the documents to build their arguments for the license hearings, he said. He said he is "very interested in seeing the documents," for technical questions, e-mails, what the department disregarded and other insights as to how it will make its case to the commission.

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Las Vegas SUN
July 08, 2004

NRC names hearing officers for DOE Yucca Mountain filings

By Ken Ritter
Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Three members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board were named Thursday to handle challenges to Energy Department filings on a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

Bollwerk had been named Wednesday to oversee Energy Department compliance with requirements that it publish documents about the planned repository on an NRC Licensing Support Network.

"Disputes have already arisen," NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said Thursday. "They will decide how to handle them."

The Energy Department certified last week that it met a June 30 deadline to post to an Internet Web site more than 1.2 million documents on the scientific underpinnings of the project.

"There are no documents available on the (Licensing Support Network) as required," Egan said Thursday. "And the vast majority of documents that we know are relevant and key to this proceeding are not available on the DOE's own Web site."

If the Energy Department did not meet the June 30 date, it wouldn't be eligible to apply by the end of the year for a repository operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Energy Department last week said some documents would come later, and said this week that it was withholding some documents with confidential information such as Social Security numbers.

Daniel Graser, the NRC's Licensing Support Network administrator, asked NRC Chairman Nils Diaz this week how to handle Energy Department requests to delete information already posted.

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On the Net:

Energy Department Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov

NRC Licensing Support Network: http://www.lsnnet.gov

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 08, 2004

Appointee to hear database disputes

Yucca Mountain licensing data challenged

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON --A hearing officer was appointed Wednesday to resolve disputes over a Yucca Mountain Project database criticized as being incomplete and disorganized since it was certified last week.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission designated G. Paul Bollwerk III to hear complaints about the Licensing Support Network, an Internet document bank for the proposed nuclear waste repository.

Bollwerk is chief administrative judge of the agency's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel.

With the administrative officer in place, attorneys for the state of Nevada said they plan to file a formal complaint this week challenging the Energy Department's database certification.

The state plans to argue that repository licensing the DOE wants to initiate in December should be pushed back until six months after databank problems are fixed.

DOE officials certified on June 30 they had made available 1.2 million documents totalling 5.6 million pages. The collection is to include all the technical background the department has compiled during studies of the Nevada site.

But NRC officials who manage the electronic network say they have received only about half the documents. They have halted indexing materials until Bollwerk can resolve questions about how the site should be maintained.

DOE documents have yet to be made publicly available at the licensing Web site (www.lsnnet.gov). The department says it has posted its materials at a DOE site (www.ocrwm.doe.gov).

Martin Malsch, a former NRC attorney now working for the state of Nevada, said he expects Bollwerk to set a rapid timetable to hear database disputes.

"There's a good chance to get this resolved in a month or so," Malsch said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 08, 2004

WESTERN SHOSHONE: Law frees funds for Indian lands

Some vow to reject share of 1979 settlement for $145 million

By Samantha Young
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday enacted a law clearing the way for Western Shoshone Indians to receive thousands of dollars apiece in compensation for tribal land taken away since the 1800s.

Some Western Shoshone immediately vowed not to accept any money, saying the government swindled the tribe out of 60 million acres across four states that no compensation can heal.

"I'm not going to sell my dignity, my spirituality, my culture. No way," said Carrie Dann, a rancher from Crescent Valley.

She is a leader among self-described "traditional" tribal members who opposed a financial settlement.

A bill Bush signed into law unlocks $145 million in settlement funds that have been accumulating interest in a federal trust fund since 1979.

Individual payments would depend on how many Indians qualify for the settlement, with estimates ranging from $15,000 to $30,000 per person.

Most Western Shoshone are expected to accept the payments, according to some tribal leaders.

"This is what our people want, what they have been striving for a long time," said Ely Shoshone chairwoman Diana Buchner. "It's going to be closure for a lot of people."

Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, could not say how long it will take tribal members to collect their checks following a lengthy process to form official tribal rolls and determine eligibility.

"It's not going to happen overnight," Darling said. "It's going to take a while."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sponsored the settlement bill. They issued statements saying its enactment brings to an end years of delay in distributing settlement funds.

But opponents contend Western Shoshone were shortchanged billions of dollars, both in land prices and mineral rights.

Congress allocated $26.1 million to the Western Shoshone in 1979 at the direction of the Indian Claims Commission, which had concluded the tribes should be compensated for land and resources lost because of "gradual encroachment." The tribes were given an 1872 price for their land and minerals, about 15 cents an acre.

Dann said tribal factions will continue to pursue title to more than 60 million acres of traditional Western Shoshone land in Nevada, California, Utah and Idaho. A lawsuit is ongoing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

Western Shoshone National Council chief Raymond Yowell and Yomba Shoshone chairman Jerril Johns said they also will refuse to take settlement funds.

Yowell said the new law is illegitimate because Congress relied on a straw poll of Western Shoshone that has yet to be certified by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"What this bill does is give them an out," Yowell said of the U.S. government. "Now they can say that they paid the Shoshone for their land. I can not be a part of it."

New Mexico attorney Tom Leubben, who represents the Yomba tribe, questioned whether Congress had superseded its authority in dividing Western Shoshone funds among individual Indians.

"I think there's a legal issue which is whether Congress has the constitutional right to individualize Western Shoshone assets without Western Shoshone tribal concurrence and liquidate the Shoshone land base and distribute its assets," Leubben said.

Yomba chairman Johns could not say whether his tribe would pursue legal recourse.

"That's up to the council," he said.

Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said the fund would be divided among Western Shoshone who qualify and choose to accept the payment.

Now that Bush has signed the bill, 10 days after the Senate approved the measure, Interior Secretary Gale Norton is charged with establishing a roll of eligible Western Shoshone.

Individual Indians who are at least one quarter Western Shoshone, a U.S. citizen and living as of Wednesday are eligible for a part of the $145 million pot. Any Indians who have received another tribal settlement would not qualify.

Darling said as many as 10,000 Western Shoshone could qualify for the settlement.

By law, the agency will consult with Western Shoshone in developing regulations governing the distribution. The regulations also will be submitted for public comment, she said.

Reid and Gibbons have maintained the settlement will not prevent tribes from pursuing separate land claims, a point some Western Shoshone have disputed.

Reid said in a statement he is working with tribes in Nevada to "support housing, agricultural, and economic development initiatives."

Graphic: Western Shoshone Territory
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-08-Thu-2004/photos/shoshone.jpg

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 08, 2004

STEVE SEBELIUS: More politics on Yucca

If I rounded up a bunch of lovable Nevada Democrats and told them that a vice presidential candidate was coming to town who'd voted repeatedly to put a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, they'd be reaching for the protest signs before I even finished speaking.

Of course I was talking about Vice President Dick Cheney, whose votes as a member of the House of Representatives are a matter of public record, and whose still-secret energy task force was clearly guided by donors from Big Energy. Right?

Not this time: I was really talking about U.S. Sen. John Edwards, John Kerry's newly picked running mate. Edwards voted for (and against) temporary storage of nuclear waste in Nevada back in 2000, and in 2002 voted to override Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca dump.

So we'll see the protest signs, right? The ever-popular Yucca Man will make an appearance at the next sign of Edwards in town? At the very least, a stern news release from party headquarters?

Not exactly.

Instead, Nevada Democrats were making signs to welcome Edwards to the Silver State, coaxing assurances that he's really not so pro-dump after all from the candidate and pointing out how George W. Bush is far, far worse.

To their credit, Nevada's Democrats didn't employ the lamest, most pathetic line when it comes to Yucca. Nobody said they've "agreed to disagree" with Edwards on the issue in the name of party unity. That's what routinely spills from the lips of Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who are in the unique legal position of both suing Bush's administration over Yucca while co-chairing his re-election campaign.

Edwards apparently told U.S. Sen. Harry Reid that he would defer to ticket-leader Kerry's staunch opposition to Yucca Mountain. Unlike Edwards, Kerry's voting record is pure. Then again, Kerry has vowed to stop the Yucca Mountain dump entirely, an impossible task without at least an act of Congress.

When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, another one-time Yucca supporter, came to town, he was so frightened of the issue he said he'd "seen the light" and changed his position. Whether anybody was convinced by the latter-day flip-flop became irrelevant when he went all Tarzan after coming in third in the Iowa caucuses.

Nobody's saying Democrats have to disown Edwards and, by extension, Kerry because of Edward's history of supporting a nuclear waste dump. But nobody is saying the party shouldn't have to take yoga classes to endure the intellectual contortions necessary to overlook the Yucca votes, either. (Actually, I take that back; I just said it.)

But if the party's membership was simply to admit that yes, Edwards did vote for Yucca, but he's right on all the other issues we care about -- including education, national security, the economy and health care -- things would be so much better.

It would cost them at least some of the moral thunder they currently deploy whenever a pro-dump Republican swings into town to raise money. It's hard to bash House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for being a Yucca supporter when you've got one running for vice president.

But that points up something unique about this issue: To Nevada, it's a litmus test. To the rest of the country, it's a funny name. Otherwise, why would Kerry have risked alienating vote-rich Nevada (not) by picking a guy who was wrong on The Big Issue?

In other states, Yucca Mountain is seen as a solution to a problem. Nuclear waste piles up in North Carolina, and Edwards wants to get rid of it so he can tell his constituents he's done something. (It's a big lie, of course. Waste will continue to pile up so long as plants are operating, and many more constituents will be exposed to danger while the waste is transported and buried in the Nevada desert.)

Sure, some Republicans may have baser motives, such as keeping the nuclear power industry alive and kicking. They do it with insurance subsidies and by promising to take out the (radioactive) garbage. But not all Democrats can say they have clean hands when it comes to propping up Big Energy, either.

No matter how many fine distinctions we make, however, it's intellectually dishonest to attack Republicans for supporting Yucca Mountain and give Democrats a pass when they do the same thing.

We can, though, single out Bush for special Yucca bashing, because he promised to wait until sound science was finished before deciding to designate Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear dump or not. And then, before "sound science" was finished, Bush acted anyway. That's a broken promise, and it's something for which the Bush campaign will have to answer.

Perhaps the saddest thing is that, for all the bluster, all the pandering, all the promises and campaigns, it's very likely that no matter who wins the White House in November, Nevada will still eventually become home to the nation's nuclear waste.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.

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Pahrump Valley Times
July 7, 2004

YUCCA MOUNTAIN

DOE database criticized

By Steve Tetreault
PVT Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Seventeen environmental organizations on Friday called on the Energy Department to withdraw its certification of a Yucca Mountain licensing database, claiming the material is incomplete and inaccessible to the public.

Segments of the Internet site (www.lsnnet.gov) that are to contain Energy Department documents related to the proposed nuclear waste repository remained dark on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which maintains the site, said those portions might become active on Saturday. Administrators were harmonizing computer coding after removing 150,000 documents that DOE claimed contained homeland security and other privileged information.

Even when it becomes functional, the database, known as the Licensing Support Network, will not contain all the technical reports, letters, science studies and emails the Energy Department certified this week as part of its Yucca Mountain license bid.

NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the NRC has received less than half the Energy Department's collection, and it will take five or six more weeks to index about 700,000 documents that are outstanding.

The environmental groups, which included the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, the Nevada Desert Experience and Las Vegas-based Citizen Alert, challenged the Energy Department's certification of its materials in a letter sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

"We request you withdraw your certification until DOE's submission of documentary material is actually completed, and the submitted materials are thoroughly indexed and posted, and entirely readable and accessible on the Licensing Support Network website," their letter stated.

DOE officials had no immediate comment on Friday.

The DOE certification was issued on the last day of June, keeping chances alive for the department to submit a repository license application by the end of the year, as it has promised Congress. Federal rules say a license bid cannot be filed until six months after DOE certifies it has made its documents available.

Attorneys for the state of Nevada are preparing to challenge the certification. They will argue the DOE's licensing bid should be put on hold until six months after all questions about the database are resolved.

Federal rules call on the NRC to appoint a pre-license hearing officer within 15 days after certification to judge issues associated with the license network.

The licensing support network is drawing attention because it is expected to serve as the official depository for all the parties that will be involved in NRC legal proceedings to license a Yucca Mountain nuclear site, including Nye County.

Energy Department officials have said they have met legal requirements. Although the Licensing Support Network website is not ready, DOE said its collection of 1.2 million Yucca Mountain documents has been made available on a department website (www.ocrwm.doe.gov)

However, the environmental groups told Abraham on Friday "the usefulness of the DOE's database as currently configured is severely limited."

The DOE site is difficult to navigate because documents were not yet indexed, some documents were not electronically linked and some text documents were in unreadable format, they said.

A message on the DOE document website said it was "temporarily down for maintenance" on Friday.

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Pahrump Valley Times
July 7, 2004

False federal assurance

Nevada Claims Energy Department's 'Caliente Corridor' Precludes Shipments

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada is accusing the Energy Department of making false assurances concerning a proposed rail route that would carry the nation's radioactive waste across the state for burial at Yucca Mountain.

"The DOE has advertised that the selection of the Caliente corridor would essentially eliminate shipment of waste through Las Vegas," Bob Loux, state nuclear projects manager, said Tuesday. "This doesn't necessarily do that."

The state opposes the Yucca Mountain Project and last month filed a 120-page argument against the shipping plan. The state contends 660 of 9,646 radioactive shipments to Yucca Mountain would pass through Las Vegas.

The Energy Department has said it plans up to 3,300 railroad shipments over 24 years to Yucca Mountain, 50 miles north of Pahrump and 20 miles north and east of Amargosa Valley and Beatty, respectively. It announced in December it wants to build a 319-mile railroad to haul the waste from Caliente, near the Utah line, across the state to Yucca Mountain.

Department spokesman Allen Benson dismissed the state's criticism as premature.

"We've selected no routes," he said. "Therefore all these numbers and all their suppositions are in question."

POW compensation

The Senate has passed a measure calling for the Defense Department to pay U.S. soldiers held as prisoners during the first Gulf War if it compensates Iraqis injured in U.S. military prisons.

"This is the fair thing to do," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the sponsor of the measure that passed without opposition Monday.

It would require the Defense Department to include 17 soldiers held as prisoners of war by Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War in any plan to compensate Iraqis injured at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Jeff Tice of Las Vegas and 16 other soldiers were captured and tortured during the first Gulf War in 1991 in the same prison.

After the war, the POWs and 37 family members won a $959 million judgment from the Iraqi government, but the White House froze the assets once the current war began. The judgment later was overturned on appeal.

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Las Vegas Mercury
July 08, 2004

Democracy in Peril

By Steve Sebelius

PAY TO PLAY: Nothing better characterizes the Republican ethos of the George W. Bush era than its desire to socialize costs while privatizing profits.

When it comes to buying prescription drugs, Republicans refused to allow Medicare to negotiate better prices with its huge buy-in-bulk negotiating power. Instead, seniors were treated to a prescription drug card that gives them a discount while maintaining big profits for drug makers.

Nuclear power companies need to get rid of the waste that's slowly been accumulating at power plants around the country, in order to continue to operate. The Bush administration proceeded to act with all deliberate speed to authorize the Yucca Mountain repository, despite the fact that millions will be put at risk from nuclear waste shipments over several decades.

And what was the invasion and occupation of Iraq--a nation that did not attack the United States--if not the use of America's taxpayer-financed military might to secure a country that would then be rebuilt by private firms, reaping private profits?

So it should be no surprise that the Bushies hate taxes to pay for roads, when there's money to be made by somebody on those "free"ways.

Traffic has apparently gotten so bad across the country that fully 56 percent of people tell the Associated Press that they'd be willing to pay higher taxes, assuming that the roads would actually get better. To that, the president says no way, promising to break in his veto pen if a highway tax bill reaches his desk.

Although abuses are legend and waste occurs daily, the way taxation is supposed to work is this: We all pay a little to the government, which is supposed to use the money to fund things that benefit us all. We all benefit from a strong national defense, from police and courts, from an educated populace and, yes, from roads. They enable us to get to work, where we make a living from which to pay those taxes in the first place.

Instead, says Mary Peters, the head of the Federal Highway Administration, why not try other alternatives, such as toll roads for those--in the words of the AP story--who are "willing to pay."

Better make that "able to pay."

Make no mistake, toll roads are great. I've used a privately run toll road in my native Orange County on many occasions, and I gladly part with about $4 to skip miles of crowded asphalt. But that doesn't mean all the roads should be that way.

Under the Bush scheme, we'd all save on taxes, and those who are "willing to pay" could cruise by in BMWs and Bentlys in their price-adjusted toll lanes while the rest of us count the spare change we've saved by avoiding a couple extra cents at the pumps. It's quite literally a society of haves and have-nots on Bush's roadways.

The concept of taxation isn't always bad, although the president can't seem to understand that. Perhaps we should tell him it's one of the things that allows all those drug companies, oil companies and energy companies to make so much money, and their executives to give so generously to his campaign.

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Chemical & Engineering News
July 8, 2004

Goverment & Policy

DOE Releases Flood Of Yucca Mountain Data

Millions of pages released, but it´s still unclear if legally required docket complete

JEFF JOHNSON

Some 5.6 million pages—1.2 million documents—of federal material in support of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository are now publicly available, the Department of Energy said last week. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires this material to be publicly available six months before DOE applies to NRC for a license to build and operate the high-level radioactive waste repository in Nevada. DOE is aiming to have an application ready by the end of the year. The documents are to be placed on NRC´s Licensing Support Network, a searchable database of all Yucca Mountain licensing information.

So far, however, NRC has received 500,000 of the 1.2 million documents, and DOE has asked NRC to withhold this information from the public until it can determine if all privacy information has been deleted, an NRC official says. The official adds that NRC cannot index and process more than 150,000 documents a week, which will stall input of the material for more than a month. NRC is unsure how to address DOE´s request to block release of the material and if this will affect the six-month availability requirement. These decisions are to be made by a “pre-license application officer’ who will be appointed by NRC by July 15, the NRC spokesperson says. Meanwhile, DOE says the material is available at its website, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov. DOE officials would not comment on whether the database is complete at this time

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EurekAlert
July 07, 2004

July/August GSA Bulletin media highlights

Boulder, Colo. – The July/August issue of the GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA BULLETIN includes a number of potentially newsworthy items. Topics include: evidence from western Oregon that supports paleoclimatic change as a driver of the Eocene-Oligocene extinction; and comprehensive structural analyses of Yucca Mountain, NV, and their implications for seismic hazards and potential groundwater pathways.

Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Ann Cairns at acairns@geosociety.org. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA BULLETIN in stories published. Contact Ann Cairns for additional information or assistance.

Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.

Structural geology of the proposed site area for a high-level radioactive waste repository, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Christopher J. Potter, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Federal Center, Denver, Colorado 80225-0046, USA, et al. Pages 858–879.

Keywords: structural geology, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, faults, joints.

This paper summarizes the deformational history of volcanic rocks at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where the U.S. Department of Energy has proposed a site for permanent underground storage of the United States' high-level radioactive waste. The proposed repository footprint, in north-central Yucca Mountain, includes the least-deformed part of the mountain. Geologic mapping of the site has demonstrated a hierarchy of fractures (faults and joints) that developed mainly between 14 and 11 million years ago. Block-bounding faults, the largest structures, remained sporadically active to within one million years before the present; these faults divide the mountain into numerous 1–4-km-wide panels of gently east-tilted volcanic strata. Intrablock faults, such as those present in the proposed repository volume, are commonly short and discontinuous. The frequency and characteristics of joints (planar breaks along which no displacement has occurred) vary greatly within the volcanic pile. These structural analyses contribute to the understanding of several important issues at Yucca Mountain, including seismic hazards and potential pathways for groundwater.

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NRC
July 08, 2004

NRC Names Pre-License Application Presiding Officer to Resolve Disputes on Submittal of Yucca Mountain Documents

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an order designating G. Paul Bollwerk III, chief of the agency´s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, as Pre-License Application Presiding Officer for Yucca Mountain. The Commission order expressly authorizes Judge Bollwerk to delegate that authority.

The Pre-License Application Presiding Officer will be responsible for resolving any disputes concerning certification of the electronic availability of documents for a future hearing on the Department of Energy´s expected application for a license for a high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

“The Commission is interested in assuring the prompt availability of information, so we quickly established the Pre-License Application Presiding Officer to address and resolve disputes,’ said NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz.

NRC regulations require all potential participants in the license application hearing process to make their documents available to other potential participants and the public in electronic form through the Licensing Support Network website, http://www.lsnnet.gov. The documents that must be made available on this network consist of the information that a party, potential party or interested government participant intends to rely on in the licensing proceeding for a high-level waste repository, and certain other relevant information.

Requiring participants to make pertinent documents available through the Licensing Support Network for use by the other participants eliminates the need for the traditional means of document discovery and will allow potential parties to use some part of the pre-application period to review documents and prepare contentions for filing in petitions to intervene in the hearing.

NRC regulations require the Department of Energy (DOE) to make its material available no later than six months before submitting its license application to the NRC. On June 30, DOE certified to the NRC the public availability of its documents.

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KRNV
July 07, 2004

NRC names administrator for DOE Yucca Mountain filings

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission named an administrator today to oversee early Energy Department filings on the Yucca Mountain project.

G. Paul Bollwerk the Third is currently chief of the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. He's going to be responsible for handling disputes about a huge database the Energy Department posted last week detailing the scientific underpinnings of the planned nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

The NRC is the agency that'll decide if the Energy Department gets a license to open the repository by the DOE's goal of 2010.

The Energy Department plans to apply for the license by the end of the year. It said last week it met a six-months' advance deadline to post more than a million documents to a Web site supporting its license application.

But the NRC only has about half those documents on its Licensing Support Network. And Nevada state and federal officials are complaining that they can't tell whether the Energy Department is answering key safety, security, and health questions.

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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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