Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, July 12, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
July 12, 2004
Fate of repository shifts back into EPA's hands
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court decision Friday puts the fate of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency unless Congress intervenes.
Nevada officials are optimistic the ruling will ultimately stop the Energy Department's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval declared the project dead, but the nuclear industry and the department also declared victory, noting that the court rejected most of Nevada's challenges.
"There are multiple paths forward, no one knows what the end is," said Steve Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
He emphasized that nothing has changed in the project since Friday, that the court did not order work stopped on the project and that several years could pass before the effects of the decision could really be felt.
"We won't know what's changed until those paths are taken; until it ends you don't know," he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the majority of Nevada's challenges, but it ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency did not follow the law and set a standard for how long the project should contain radiation without heeding the advice of the National Academy of Science.
The EPA said 10,000 years. The academy said it should be for the peak life of the radiation, which could up to 300,000 years. Nevada officials say that would mean the project is dead because the project couldn't be built to last for that long.
However, both the federal government and the state are expected to appeal the court ruling and, perhaps more importantly, Congress, which approved the repository, could get involved and make a law that would essentially overturn the court's ruling.
"They're (DOE) going to the Hill," said Geoff Fettus, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Fettus argued part of the case against the standards.
The department has asked Congress earlier this year to change another NRDC court case, coincidentally won by Fettus, that found the department did not have the authority to classify high-level radioactive waste in three states as something else in order to leave it there. The department asked Congress to grant it the authority. The Senate approved the change just for South Carolina, while the House did not approve the measure. A congressional conference committee is still considering it.
The department could ask Congress to change a number of things, but Michele Boyd, legislative representative for Public Citizen, said it would be "incredibly foolish" for any member to vote to remove the requirement for the academy's recommendation on the project because it would remove key scientific oversight.
The court threw out the 10,000 year standard and ordered that the agency must either issue a revised radiation standard that follows the academy's recommendation or ask Congress for legislative authority to deviate from the academy's recommendations.
"It was Congress that required (the) EPA to rely on (the academy's) expert scientific judgment, and given the serious risks nuclear waste disposal pose for the health and welfare of the American people, it is up to Congress -- not (the) EPA and not this court -- to authorize departures from the prevailing statutory scheme," according to the court decision.
The court also threw out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing standard that also used the 10,000-year compliance period. The department is in the midst of working on the project's license application it planned to submit to the NRC in December using that 10,000-year compliance period and other radiation standards.
"It's going to be difficult for (the) DOE (Energy Department) to submit a license application when they don't know the standards they have to meet," Fettus said. "This is critical to licensing. I think (the) DOE would like to relegate this as a minor footnote, but it's not."
The department has said for years it needs to submit its license application by this December to reach its planned 2010 opening date.
Boyd said there is no way the department could submit the license application because the 10,000-year compliance period is no longer legal. Due to the court decision, it no longer exists.
But Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, like the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's lobbying group, which also supports the project, did not see the decision having a large effect on the project.
Instead, Abraham and NEI released statements pointing to the court's rejection of Nevada's challenges against Congress's approval of the project, the department's selection process and the commission's licensing criteria.
"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," Abraham said. "Therefore, DOE will be working with the EPA and Congress to determine appropriate steps to address this issue."
Angie Howard, NEI executive vice president, said the decision should not delay the project.
"We are confident the standards can be addressed and the project will move forward," Howard said. "The project can operate safely beyond 10,000 years and it's a matter of just going back and making some decisions."
Howard said it was premature to say exactly what the next steps would be but said that more research has been done since the academy's recommendations.
Fettus said that by going back to the academy's standard, which will reach far beyond the original 10,000-year mark, the geologic makeup of the mountain will have to be the main barrier against radiation harming the public because no engineered barrier will last that long.
"It can't rely on manmade barriers," Fettus said. "The real fundamental issues here is the geology. Is it adequate? This is going to force that assessment. We cannot overstate the importance of that finding by the court."
Fettus said there is no specific timeline set for the agency to start working on a new rule, but it is "a domino effect" that will put the licensing process on hold until the agency creates a new rule and the commission creates new licensing criteria based on that rule.
A new agency rule will take time to create. The academy's radiation standard recommendation came out in 1995 and the agency did not finalize the rule until 2001.
Antonio Rossman, a San Franciso-based attorney for Nevada, estimated it would take at least two years for the EPA to set a new standard, but then the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would also have to make its own new rule, which would also take time. Both would need public comment periods, drafts, final evaluations and other steps required by law when making federal rules.
Meanwhile, Rossman pointed out that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act act prohibited filibusters in the Senate and specified the committees that could address the bill that would approve Yucca Mountain. He said those restrictions, which played out in 2002, would not be in place on any bill the department would try to push through.
"Now all the rules in Congress to deal with this acute bias toward the minority can be put into play," Rossman said.
Nevada's congressional delegation was quick to praise the decision Friday, but also knew it did not immediately spell the end of the project.
"I have no doubt that the White House and the nuclear power industry are going to fight the court's action, but this should serve as a warning to both, that science, not politics, must guide this process," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "We have already wasted billions of dollars on a hole in the Nevada desert, and today's court ruling only proves that the Yucca Mountain is unsafe, unwise and unworkable."
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he had been waiting for Friday's decisions for 20 years and that is was a "huge win" for the state but that he still "does not trust Washington, D.C."
"I'm not going to let my guard down," Porter said. "Both Democrats and Republican want to find a plan to store the waste, there are 29 states looking for a place for it. I know how serious of an issue this is, there are 400 member that support it and they will try to find a way. There are so many agendas involved."
"I wish this would be the end of it but not it's not until I see the last shovel of dirt go into the hole," Porter said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., called the decision a "fatal blow" to the project, especially because the department would have to go back to Congress to make a change or prove the site will be safe beyond 10,00 years.
"That will be a high standard to meet, and one that I doubt the DOE could realistically meet. Ultimately, (Friday's) ruling creates a monumental obstacle and uncertain delay in the licensing process for Yucca Mountain," Gibbons said.
"I don't think Congress is going to be easily swayed to deviate from its own safety requirement," Gibbons said. "Whether they can breathe life back into the cadaver, I don't know."
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Las Vegas SUN
July 12, 2004
Political impact of Yucca remains unclear
Democrats hope waste worries will help Kerry
By Kirsten Searer
<searer@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
Forget the donkey: Local Democrats use Yucca Man and Chicken George as party symbols these days.
The two mascots have shown up at numerous Republican events in the past few months. Yucca Man, an old friend to Democrats, dresses in a white haz-mat suit to represent the possible perils of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Chicken George takes a pot shot at President Bush for failing to come to Southern Nevada to talk about Yucca Mountain since he signed a pro-Yucca bill in 2002.
Democrats hope that Bush's decision to go ahead with Yucca Mountain -- combined with Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's resolute promise to halt the project -- will hand them Nevada this presidential election.
And they feel buoyed by a federal court ruling Friday that found the government didn't heed the National Academy of Science in setting a key standard for the planned repository.
But it's unclear what political impact the Yucca Mountain issue will have on this year's tight election.
Any clarity of Yucca Mountain as a political issue has been clouded a bit.
More than a dozen polls, commissioned over the last few years by Republicans, Democrats and pro- and anti-Yucca groups, show Nevadans' split feelings over Yucca Mountain:
Nevadans consistently object to the project. A range of people -- usually at least 70 percent -- consistently say they don't want the project to come to Nevada.
About 65 percent of Nevadans want the state to continue fighting the project in court, according to a poll commissioned by the state in October. That's almost exactly the same percentage of Nevadans who favored the court fight in June 2002.
Opinions -- and polls -- diverge from there. Some show that while Nevadans disagree with the project, Yucca Mountain doesn't rank high on a list of pressing issues. Other polls say it does.
There's the rub as the issue garners more attention this election season.
Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has tracked Yucca polling for years. Opinions sometimes fluctuate, particularly in rural areas, during tougher economic times, when people see an opportunity for compensation from the government, he said.
But usually, rooting for Yucca Mountain in Nevada is "like being against apple pie and motherhood."
The question is, will Nevadans use it as a litmus test in the presidential election?
Democrats hope so. They're mindful that had Al Gore won Nevada, he would have won the presidency. And Nevada is one of the so-called "battleground" states, meaning plenty of money and attention are being directed here.
Over the weekend, national Democrats passed a platform that specifically condemned Yucca Mountain, saying, "We will protect Nevada and its communities from the high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, which has not been proven to be safe by sound science."
The 2000 Democratic platform simply stated the nuclear waste should be stored in a "scientifically sound manner," though it did not mention Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who sat on the platform committee this weekend, said the message says "to Nevada and the rest of the nation that Democrats find the Yucca Mountain Project to be unsafe, and that we will fight to protect our families from high-level nuclear waste."
Berkley said she originally proposed a draft version of the plank, but the committee ended up strengthening the language. Nevada, she said, is the only state specifically mentioned in the Democratic platform.
"We just were very fortunate that the language reflected not only the party's position but our soon-to-be (presidential) nominee's position, as well," she said.
The national Republicans, though, say they have been basing their view on "sound science."
"More than 20 years and $4 billion in scientific study demonstrates that Yucca Mountain is scientifically and technically suitable for development," said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. "The D.C. Circuit Court affirmed the actions taken by this administration and the Congress to develop the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as the nation's first long-term geologic repository for nuclear waste."
The court ruling proves, Democrats have said, that Bush lied when he made a pledge to follow "sound science" when he proceeded with the project.
"This does delay it long enough for us to change the administration," said Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins. "We won."
State Republicans, meanwhile, are walking a careful line. On one hand, Bush's surrogates have flown into town to reassure the public that Bush has based the project on "sound science."
On the other, Republicans from Gov. Kenny Guinn to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have coyly said they'll "agree to disagree" with the president.
Ensign told the local media Friday that Bush "has been ill-served by his advisers" in proceeding with the project.
Despite Kerry's strong anti-Yucca position, his new running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., like many other Democrats, voted in favor of Yucca Mountain in 2002.
Many Republicans argue that Edwards' vote proves that both Republicans and Democrats stood behind the effort to pass Yucca Mountain, said Republican strategist Sig Rogich, who worked for the first President Bush.
"None of us want Yucca Mountain here, that goes without saying," Rogich said. "But conversely, it's pretty difficult to say it all rests with the president of the United States when Congress, with an overwhelming majority, voted to send it here. That's Republicans and Democrats."
The polls don't really help decide the issue. Polls have shown everything from Bush not being affected by his decision on Yucca Mountain to people being less likely to vote for him because of it.
Longtime Nevada pollster Kent Oram said that Yucca Mountain typically ranks far below other issues of concern such as education, crime, drugs, water and traffic congestion.
"It's not even high enough to register on discussion," he said. "It's a press issue. A lot of people talk a lot about it, but when we ask these questions for years it doesn't come up. If it does, it's minuscule."
A new poll from America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush, disputes that assertion, however.
The poll of registered voters found that only the rising gas prices weighed more on Nevadans' minds than Yucca Mountain.
And those worries cut across party lines, the poll found. Groups that traditionally vote Republican all were "very worried" about the project.
The question really will be how the voters perceive the debate, and the national campaigns are drawing clear comparisons.
Kerry's campaign has promised that a President Kerry would create an international blue-ribbon panel to look at the issue and come up with recommendations on what to do with the nation's nuclear waste.
"Given the urgency of this problem, it will be right away," said Sean Smith, spokesman for Kerry's Nevada campaign. "We can't have all this waste being trucked and shipped across this country."
Smith brushed aside criticism that Edwards voted for Yucca Mountain, saying Kerry's 16-year record of voting against Yucca Mountain speaks for itself.
"John Kerry is at the top of the ticket," Smith said. "It's his vision, it's his platform, and it's going to be his presidency."
Republicans from Ensign to top presidential adviser Karl Rove have questioned whether Kerry could fulfill his promise to stop the project.
Rove, who predicted that Nevadans will base their vote on the economy, the war on terrorism and the "values" of the presidential candidates, said Nevadans "are smart enough to know it's one thing to make a rash pledge that it's not coming here.
"It's another thing to be able to operate on it when you have so many states that have material in their states and for so long have been told that eventually there will be a place to put it," he said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 12, 2004
Political Notebook: GOP consultant aims to help get Nader on ballot
Wark raised money for petition drive
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
A Republican political consultant is largely responsible for Ralph Nader's successful petition drive in Nevada.
Steve Wark helped establish Choices for America to raise money to help Nader qualify.
Democrats won't be surprised to learn of the GOP's involvement in Nader's efforts in Nevada, so Wark isn't pulling any punches.
He did it solely to help President Bush's efforts. Does he think Nader will make the difference in the Silver State for Bush?
"I would hope so," Wark said. "I didn't do it for my own health."
Wark is a political consultant working on a number of political campaigns, most notably the U.S. Senate bid of Richard Ziser and the re-election campaign of state Sen. Ray Rawson. His mother-in-law is Earlene Forsythe, Nevada Republican Party chairwoman.
Democratic voter Lorraine Blank suspected some kind of Republican link to the Nader signature qualifications when she first read about Nader's petition in the newspaper.
"I think it's dirty tricks," Blank said. "It's just like the 2000 election, discounting the votes in Florida."
Wark's Choices for America helped solicit cash to get the signatures on the ballot by reaching out to Republican chairmen in Nevada's counties.
"Please join me in this gallant effort to give our President the best chance possible of winning in November," ended one e-mail, sent by Republican Stu Richardson to a variety of Republican operatives.
The e-mail asks for money to be sent to Wark's home in Las Vegas, and estimates that $30,000 will be needed to qualify Nader for the ballot in time for the July 9 deadline.
Wark said he didn't consider his work to be akin to the Republican Party efforts in Michigan and Oregon to get Nader on the ballot there. He insisted Nader had a representative in Nevada working on the efforts.
"I raised money from friends of mine who are nonpartisan," Wark said. "It wasn't all Republicans, just folks I do business with."
Wark's Image and Design consulting firm has a stable of political clients this year. In addition to Ziser and Rawson, he's got two out-of-state Republican Senate clients, Republican Assembly candidate Jon Petrick and Republican Supreme Court candidate Don Ashworth.
Sage grouse update
As dozens of statements were buzzing across the Internet on Friday commenting on the federal appeals court's Yucca Mountain decision, Gov. Kenny Guinn took time to brief constituents on another pressing matter.
His "Message from the Governor" on Friday discussed, in great detail, the finalization of a sage grouse conservation plan.
Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or ENeff@reviewjournal.com.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 11, 2004
Nuke dump fight isn´t finished yet
Editorial:
Opponents of the federal government´s plan to bury the nation´s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada declared the plan dead Friday when an appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled the Environmental Protection Agency´s standards for the dump illegal.
If only it were so.
Certainly, the ruling should cause President George W. Bush, who promised that the decision to open the Yucca Mountain waste repository would be based on the scientific evidence, to rethink his approval of the project.
The court rejected the EPA´s requirement that the plan protect the public from radiation for 10,000 years. Instead, the court said, the repository must meet a much more stringent standard recommended by the National Academy of Sciences: as much as 300,000 years. That´s in keeping with what Nevada has been arguing for many years: When it becomes obvious that Yucca Mountain can´t meet the established standards, the EPA and Department of Energy simply change the standards to something the repository can meet.
After the ruling, opponents, ranging from Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen to U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said that meeting the more stringent standard would be next to impossible, so the decision effectively kills the plan.
But proponents of the Yucca Mountain plan long ago put all their eggs into the rather fragile Yucca Mountain basket and they aren´t likely to give up that easily. Friday´s decision undoubtedly will be appealed, and instead of trying to meet the appropriate standard, they´re likely to ask Congress itself to change the law to lower the threshold to something that Yucca Mountain can meet. And Congress has shown it will take whatever action is necessary to ensure Nevada is stuck with the repository.
Whatever happens, more lawsuits are likely, and the delays will push back the opening of Yucca Mountain even further.
The appropriate answer, of course, would be for the Bush administration to order a crash program to find a better way to dispose of the waste that has been building up at nuclear power plants for decades than dumping it into a big hole in the ground.
Having eliminated all the alternatives years ago to concentrate on the boondoggle at Yucca Mountain, however, the proponents have to continue the fight. So Nevada has no choice but to fight on, too.
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KVBC
July 12, 2004
Yucca Mountain Ruling Considered A Victory For Nevada
Maria Silva Reporting
Two big decisions today affecting the Yucca Mountain project. One a major blow to Nevada. The other providing hope that Yucca Mountain won't become the nations nuclear waste dump.
The Department of Energy claims a win because the court dismissed arguments the Yucca waste dump was unconstitutional.
Nevada's win came from a technicality. The courts decided the government has to protect the public from radiation for more than 10-thousand years. The EPA will have to conduct studies, research that will take time and likely delay the 2010 scheduled opening of Yucca Mountain. It also gives Nevada leaders more time to kill the project.
News 3's Maria Silva talked with those on the front line of this battle against the federal government.
Soon after the ruling, both Nevada Democrats and Republicans made their feelings known; all celebrating today's ruling, a ruling they say should give Nevadans hope that the project can be stopped.
"It's a tremendous blow to this bloated project."
"This is a very significant date for our state."
Both Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign called today's ruling a huge victory, but agreed the fight if far from over.
Even though it's been an issue both Nevada Democrats and Republicans have been battling together for many years, the attention turned to how this will affect the November Presidential Election.
"You can't pretend to be opposed to something and then with a wink-wink put in your party platform that we should negotiate for benefits or endorse the President who is rushing Yucca Mountain here."
Kerry's stance on the issue: Clear. "He has a 16 year record of voting against it."
Not so clear is running mate John Edwards.
"In his career he's cast one vote for and one against it on all issues that affect Nevada. But in the end all agreed both parties will continue their fight against the project no matter what the cost.
Senator John Ensign did acknowledged that Bush's push for the Yucca Mountain project may affect his popularity with Nevada voters, but says, come this November, Nevadans should look at all issues and not just the Yucca Mountain issue.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign also released a statement. In it, it says, "Today's court decision confirms that the Bush Administration turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain Repository."
Yucca Mountain Timeline:
• It started back in the early 1980's when the Department of Energy identified Yucca Mountain as one of nine potential sites for storage of the nation´s nuclear waste.
• In 1985 President Reagan approved three sites for consideration: Yucca Mountain, Hanford, Washington and Deaf Smith County, Texas.
• In 1987 the other sites were dismissed. The government put all its effort in studying Yucca Mountain.
• In February of 2002, President Bush gave final approval to make Yucca Mountain the home of the nation´s nuclear waste.
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Newsday
July 12, 2004
Trial begins over government's nuclear waste costs
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- The government's failure to open a dump site for commercial nuclear waste could expose taxpayers to tens of billions of dollars in damages. The first in an expected string of trials to determine how much began Monday across the street from the White House.
More than two decades ago, the government signed a contract with utilities promising to take charge of the highly radioactive used reactor fuel at commercial power plants by 1998. But the government has yet to come up with a central storage site.
A number of court cases have ruled that the Energy Department is liable for the cost of keeping the waste _ and possibly punitive damages _ because of a breach of contract. How much is at stake is anyone's guess, but the industry has put the number as high as $56 billion.
The first case, involving three utilities that own the Yankee group of reactors in Maine, Vermont and Haddam, Conn., went to trial Monday before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The trial is expected to last seven weeks.
Jerry Stouck, an attorney representing the utilities, outlined a case that was expected to focus on the government's repeated failures, dating back to 1983, to get approval for a central waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and its refusal in the interim to accept the waste at some other facility.
The courts already have ruled the government violated its contract with the nation's utilities to take charge of the waste. Now the utilities are seeking damages, with a total of 65 claims having been filed.
"Damages. Damages. It's all about damages. How much money are we entitled to," Stouck said during a break in the proceedings.
The case before Judge James Merow of the claims court is limited to used reactor fuel that is being stored at the Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe (Massachusetts) nuclear plant sites. The issue is of special importance to the utilities because the reactors have been shut down and keeping the waste is more expensive and may affect site cleanup.
"`If this litigation is successful, it will provide some financial relief to the electric customers who bear the increasing costs to store fuel at these sites as a result of the DOE's failure to met its legal obligations," said Bruce Kenyon, chairman of Yankee Atomic Electric Co.
The utilities together are asking for $548 million in damages for costs incurred to keep the spent reactor fuel in dry-cask storage until 2010. That is when the proposed Yucca Mountain waste site is expected to begin taking waste from commercial power plants.
The damages sought by the New England utilities is nearly double the $268 million cited in 1999 when they began litigation. Stouck said costs of keeping the waste on site had been underestimated and storing it has become more expensive because of increased security needs with today's terror threats.
But the money sought in this trial is only a fraction of what the government may have to pay, given that these are only three of 65 claims filed _ claims by the owners of the country's 102 reactors at 72 power plants.
And the bill could grow if the Yucca Mountain waste site fails to open in 2010 as planned. A federal appeals court on Friday raised new questions about the Energy Department's ability to keep its timetable when it rejected the government's proposed radiation protection standard for the Yucca site.
In a recent letter to Congress on problems getting funding for Yucca Mountain, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham estimated utilities will incur $500 million a year in costs for keeping used reactor fuel on site for every year the Yucca Mountain dump is delayed past 2010.
"Some portion of (that cost) ... the department will be liable for," wrote Abraham.
The utilities contend the government had a contractual obligation under the federal nuclear waste law to physically take charge of used reactor fuel. If Yucca Mountain were delayed, another site on federal property should have been found, they argue.
The courts in a number of separate cases have acknowledged the government was obligated to find a safe and suitable place for the waste. They also said if such a place were not available, the government would have to pay the utilities damages.
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PR Newswire
July 12, 2004
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Selects Autonomy to Power Licensing Support Network Web Site
Autonomy's Technology Expedites Evidence Sharing in Yucca Mountain Radioactive Waste Repository Case
SAN FRANCISCO, July 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc
(Nasdaq: AUTN; LSE: AU.), a leading provider of infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), an independent agency that regulates civilian use of nuclear materials, has recently upgraded its existing Autonomy configuration to power its Licensing Support Network (LSN) Web site, LSNNET.gov. The upgraded configuration to the most recent version of the software adds new services that allow significantly expanded capacity. The Web site, built by AT&T Government Solutions, is dedicated to sharing discovery materials relating to the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository proceeding. Autonomy's technology will perform accurate and efficient retrieval of more than a million documents for numerous participants involved in the hearings.
Powered by Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) technology, LSNNET.gov provides a single place where the numerous parties and potential parties to the licensing hearing -- including the State of Nevada, several Nevada counties, the National Congress of American Indians and various environmental groups -- can share and search discovery documents in a uniform way. With Autonomy, concept queries bring back relevant information, as well as documents for which the user has not thought to search. This functionality makes Autonomy a precise and powerful tool that can sift through a massive amount of data quickly.
"Because it's being used in a legal application, there was a major focus on using a software product that ensures reliable results," said Dan Graser, LSN administrator. "Autonomy's language analysis and relevance ranking gained our confidence that the system is reliable and that it meets expectations for precise information delivery."
"With LSNNET.gov, the NRC has provided a valuable tool for document sharing in a complicated hearing," said John Cronin, vice president, Autonomy federal group. "Autonomy's technology is an integral part of expediting that process, given the number of documents and parties involved, and will positively impact the NRC's commitment to provide a level playing field for all involved in the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository case."
Autonomy's unique IDOL integrates unstructured, semi-structured and structured information from multiple repositories through an understanding of their content. Autonomy grants enterprises the flexibility to use advanced information retrieval or legacy-based approaches. At the heart of Autonomy's software is its ability to process text, voice and video, and identify and rank the main concepts within them. It then automatically categorizes, links, summarizes, personalizes and delivers that information. Autonomy's technology also drives collaboration across the enterprise and enables organizations to effectively leverage expertise. Autonomy's infrastructure technology is used to automate operations within enterprise information portals, customer relationship management, knowledge management, business intelligence and e-business applications, among others.
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Rocky Mountain News
July 12, 2004
On Point:
Out of Their Minds
A federal appeals court on Friday said the federal government's proposed time frame of 10,000 years for protecting Nevada residents from radiation leaks at the Yucca Mountain waste site wasn't long enough. We were going to characterize this as judicial arrogance, but lunacy actually sounds more like it.
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Nevada Appeal
July 11, 2004
Yucca Mountain isn't so inevitable now
Nevada Appeal editorial board
Could this really be the end of the Yucca Mountain nuclear-storage project? Nevada officials certainly sounded like it on Friday as they reacted to an appeals court ruling that rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's standard of protection for 10,000 years.
Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval said Yucca Mountain had been "stopped in its tracks."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he believed the ruling was "enough to effectively kill the project."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also said it "provides Nevada a crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all."
But the money and the political forces arrayed against Nevada are vast, and we'll take a slightly more guarded view of the court's ruling.
As long as there is no viable alternative developed for storage of the nation's highly-level radioactive waste, not to mention the $6 billion already spent on the Southern Nevada hole in the ground, it will be difficult to believe the plan won't be pursued in some form.
Still, Nevadans who oppose the Yucca Mountain project can celebrate a major victory. The court's finding buttresses their argument that standards were being compromised against the research of "sound science."
It's an even bigger blow to the forces in the state who lately have been counseling "negotiation" as a means of gaining some kind of financial windfall for Nevadans for a federal dump site they deemed inevitable.
If nothing else, the EPA will have to go back to the drawing board to set radiation standards. That likely will take years. We'd much rather the Department of Energy take a bigger step back and reconsider the whole concept of moving 77,000 tons of radioactive waste across the country to the Nevada desert so it can be buried in casks.
A real alternative - one that doesn't needlessly expose millions of people or threaten the water supply of the country's fastest-growing city - is ultimately the only course that will ensure the Yucca Mountain idea is dead forever.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 11, 2004
Science Versus Politics: Yucca ruling seen as bad for Bush
Parties agree decision will affect presidential election in battleground state
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
Friday's federal court decision on Yucca Mountain reignited the state's most fiery political issue with both Republicans and Democrats agreeing on one thing: It will affect the presidential election in this key battleground state.
Democrats and Republicans alike cheered the ruling, which said that the radiation standard established by the government for the nuclear waste repository could not meet legal requirements to protect public health and safety.
But that's where the unity ended.
Democrats immediately heralded the ruling as a blow to President Bush. The decision essentially says that, up until now, science had been trumped by politics, they asserted.
Even Republican U.S. Sen. John Ensign admitted Democrats have gained traction with the Yucca Mountain issue since Bush recommended the site and the Republican-controlled Congress in 2002 approved it.
"I think Yucca has hurt the president's campaign," Ensign said. "It's the only reason Nevada is even close."
Republicans in the state were carefully trying to balance their Battle Born pride in the decision with the reality that crowing too much could be perceived as hurting Bush's efforts.
But some said they were hoping Nevada would prevail on a stronger argument, not a technical one.
"This is obviously not the decision we were hoping for," began a joint statement from state GOP Chairwoman Earlene Forsythe and Clark County GOP Chairman Brian Scroggins.
In an interview, Scroggins said the state lost its biggest fight, the legal challenge over states' rights, and thus, "it's a disappointing ruling."
"It is expected that Democrats will continue to make this a partisan issue," the joint statement read.
Democrats pulled no punches.
"I think that this is a real blow to George Bush," U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "George Bush tried to tell the people of Nevada that he would follow good science. Now this decision comes down and says it's just not good science, not good for the environment.
"I think it makes George Bush look like he deceived the state," Reid said.
In 2000, when Bush was a candidate, he issued a statement while campaigning in Northern Nevada. The statement promised that, as president, he would base any decision on the siting of a national repository on "sound science, not politics."
Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said the ruling by a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel supports the steps the administration has taken.
"(The court) affirmed the actions taken by this administration and the Congress to develop the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as the nation's first long-term geologic repository for nuclear waste," Schmitt said. "The administration decision was based on 20 years and $4 billion in scientific study."
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and running mate John Edwards released a statement saying the court "confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows -- that the Bush administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository."
During a campaign trip to Nevada in May, Kerry promised that if he is elected, Yucca Mountain will not be a repository.
"We need a new administration because if this comes up again we can't have the same people who hurt us before making the decision," said Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas.
Titus said Republican efforts to couch Yucca Mountain in terms of a bipartisan issue fail. She pointed to the inclusion of a state GOP platform plank that calls for negotiating for benefits for federally-owned public lands, a plank that covers Yucca Mountain, although not by name.
"You can't pretend to be opposed to something and then, with a wink-wink, sneak something into the party platform to negotiate for benefits and also endorse the president," Titus said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., recently told the Review-Journal's editorial board that if the president has trouble in Nevada, it can be blamed on Yucca Mountain.
Republican consultant Sig Rogich, a friend of President Bush's father, has called the platform plank "idiocy."
But Democrats say they don't think the president is in trouble in Nevada solely because of Yucca Mountain.
"The economy in Nevada is better than in the rest of the nation, but we lead the nation in uninsured," Reid said after citing problems with education, veterans issues and health care. "I think that Yucca Mountain makes the race one that should be easier for Kerry to win. I don't think Yucca Mountain makes Nevada a close state, I think it means Nevada will go for Kerry."
Scroggins said the selection of Edwards as Kerry's running mate weakens the Democrats' argument.
Edwards took two votes on Yucca Mountain, one for and one against it, leading some to question how the Kerry campaign would live up to the candidate's May promise to the state.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she received Edwards' assurance that there is "no sunlight" between his position and Kerry's anymore.
"Contrast John Edwards' position now with Dick Cheney and his secret meetings with nuclear energy leaders and the position that we need to expand nuclear production which will produce more waste," Berkley said. "There's no contest between the two."
Scroggins said he believes that if the president agrees with him on 90 percent of the issues, Bush still represents him well.
"The Kerry-Edwards ticket is too liberal for Nevada," Scroggins said. "The Protection of Marriage Act passed two times with almost 70 percent."
Scroggins was referring to the ballot question that banned gay marriage in the state's constitution.
Berkley said she believes voters will view the Yucca issue as another example of "a blatant lie" from the administration. She pointed to Medicare reform that she said isn't working and the underfunding of the No Child Left Behind Act as two examples.
If the Department of Energy appeals the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, or if Congress is asked to create a different radiation standard, Democrats argue they need a change in the White House to keep Friday's court victory in the state's favor.
"John Kerry and John Edwards are going to be the key factor this coming election to make sure Yucca Mountain doesn't stay in Nevada," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who chairs the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus.
"This fight's not over," added Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson. "We won, but this doesn't mean the project is dead."
Rep. Jon Porter, a Republican freshman in a competitive re-election campaign against Democrat Tom Gallagher, strayed the furthest among his GOP colleagues in celebrating the court victory.
"We know the Department of Energy bent the rules to find the site suitable," Porter said. "Today, it is clear that sound science and common sense have prevailed over political expediency."
Gallagher said that when he was CEO of Park Place Entertainment, the company donated $100,000 to help finance the state's legal and lobbying campaign against Yucca Mountain.
"I am optimistic this court has landed a serious blow against Yucca," Gallagher said. "I will fight every day to make sure Yucca proponents never recover from that blow."
Review-Journal writer Henry Brean contributed to this report.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 11, 2004
JOHN L. SMITH: Yucca Mountain story offers Hollywood ending for underdog Nevada
I'm thinking of writing a story.
It's about a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere way out in Nevada.
The story begins a quarter century ago with a plan to create the hole. Officially, the hole would be used as a place to store radioactive waste collected from around the country. In reality, the hole was a metaphor for the blind power and limitless greed of the men who became wealthy beyond our dreams but in the process created a waste so deadly it was capable of killing our children's children thousands of years into the future. Those powerful men decided to make billions first and fret the consequences later.
When the future arrives, they use their vast political contacts to force the hole upon politically puny Nevada, a state which possesses an outlaw reputation, initially has only three representatives in Congress, and hasn't enough juice to light a 20-watt bulb.
The state is targeted from the outset. Conventional wisdom, which is seldom wise, makes the hole's destiny a foregone conclusion. In short, it's all over but the shouting, the digging, and the paperwork.
The people of Nevada don't want the hole, but their voices are drowned out by the sound of digging. Not just the physical kind, but the political kind as well.
In an effort to soothe the fears of the citizens, expensive advertising campaigns are produced to wear them down. Lobbyists are hired to soften up politicians.
Those digging the hole invite skeptics, the curious, and the media to visit it, don hard hats, and decide for themselves whether it's safe. Forget for a moment that common citizens, and especially reporters, aren't competent judges of such scientific questions. Remember, this isn't about science.
Just when Nevadans had all but given up hope, a twist ending: Federal judges sitting 3,000 miles from the hole hear that the science of the project is flawed, and agree. For the first time in a quarter century, science trumps politics. The court ruling promises the project will be delayed for many years, so many in fact that work on the hole will cease.
It is Bobby Thomson's home run, Michael Jordan's jump shot, and Rocky Balboa's comeback all rolled into one. Nevada, the underdog's underdog, the flyweight among sumo wrestlers, prevails.
The hole only looks empty.
In reality, it is crowded with many things.
First, there's money. Through the years, the government spends billions of dollars studying the hole, preparing to dig it. This money comes from taxpayers and electric power consumers. Billions that could have been frittered away on poor children, ailing veterans, health care for the elderly, or even wider interstates, are poured into the hole.
Then, there's the paperwork. By the government's own count, it has created 5.6 million pages of documents about the hole, far more than has been written about the Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis combined. Those pages also flow into the hole.
It remains far from filled. There's still enough room in the hole for a sitting president, who conned Nevadans into believing he was sincere when he promised that science, and not politics, would rule the process. Those who had followed the story believed that politics would always rule the process.
He would be joined by some members of his party, including a former Nevada governor, who were only too eager to sell out for shekels in the name of the "inevitability" of the project.
In the end, billions are spent. Political careers rise and fall. Columnists make fools of themselves misreading the landscape.
The hole in the ground goes down as one of the greatest boondoggles in the history of a nation whose politicians pride themselves on their fiscal foolishness.
As the credits roll in the movie version, the project is silent. Tumbleweeds roll past the hole. A curious coyote sniffs at the entrance, cocks his head at the incomprehensible waste, and trots off into a golden Nevada sunset.
Yes, I'm thinking of writing a story about a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere way out in Nevada.
But who would believe it?
John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 11, 2004
Week In Review: Yucca Mountain ruling half-full or half-empty
Both sides declared victory Friday when a federal appeals court shot down Nevada's states' rights argument against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, but also said a 10,000-year safety standard backed by the Environmental Protection Agency did not go far enough.
"We think we put a stake through the heart of this project," said Joe Egan, an attorney for Nevada.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham countered, "I am pleased with today's decisions handed down by the court."
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the state's arguments that it was unconstitutional to foist the nation's nuclear waste on Nevada.
The judges also paid no heed to Nevada's argument that the selection process was illegal.
But dump opponents hailed another part of the ruling that said the EPA's proposed radiation exposure limits weren't good enough. They said the ruling would derail the project while the government pursues appeals.
The dump had been scheduled to open in 2010 about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We're very excited about this decision because it reaffirms what we've said all along, that politics drove this process," said state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas.
More simply, Peggy Maze Johnson, president of Citizen Alert, said she yelled, "We won," when she heard the decision.
"The decision today said start from zero and send it back and start all over," she said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 11, 2004
Week In Review: Reporter's Notebook
At a Hastily Called News Conference Friday to respond to the federal appeals court Yucca Mountain ruling, Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins was flanked by fellow Democrats Dina Titus and Yvonne Atkinson Gates. "It's like two roses," Titus said as she stood to Perkins' left and peeked behind his back at Gates. "Yeah, and I'm the thorn," Perkins said.
Erin Neff
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 11, 2004
Project part of national platform
Democratic plank calls repository plans in Nevada unsafe
The Associated Press
Democrats took a strong position Saturday against a planned Southern Nevada nuclear waste repository, approving a plank in the national platform that says the Yucca Mountain project is unsafe.
During a meeting in Hollywood, Fla., the party's platform committee approved the plank proposed by member Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
"It sends a very strong message that the Democratic Party is solidly behind the state of Nevada in its fight against Yucca Mountain," Berkley said in a telephone interview. "It draws a line in the sand and a distinction between the two parties' positions when it comes to the safety of Nevada families."
Yucca Mountain has become a key election-year issue in Nevada, with Democrats pushing Kerry's longtime opposition and citing President Bush's approval of the plan.
The platform, which will be presented to delegates later this month at the national convention in Boston, includes party principles on social and economic issues and closely resembles Sen. John Kerry's campaign agenda.
Kerry voted against the federal government's plan in 2002 and has said "Yucca Mountain will not be a repository" if he wins in November.
"It will take a Democratic president to stop this process dead in its tracks, and John Kerry has already promised to do that," Berkley said.
The plank reads: "We will protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain which has not been proven to be safe by sound science."
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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004
Editorial: State draws Yucca blood
Las Vegas SUN
Weekend Edition
July 10 - 11, 2004
The news often hasn't been upbeat for Nevadans in the more than two decades that the state has sought to fend off the federal government's efforts to bury high-level nuclear waste here. But on Friday the state of Nevada scored a major victory in federal court. Although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected some of the state's arguments against building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, the court importantly sided with the state and environmental groups in finding that a critical radiation standard for the planned dump was incorrectly established and that this flaw must be corrected. The decision has the potential to turn the tide in the state's uphill battle against Yucca.
The court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency, in setting safety regulations for the proposed dump, didn't follow a crucial recommendation made by the National Academy of Sciences. The federal Energy Policy Act mandates that the EPA must set its safety standards for Yucca Mountain "based upon and consistent" with the recommendations of the Academy. While the EPA said that 10,000 years was a long enough period of time to safely contain the dump's radiation so it couldn't harm the public, the Academy said it wasn't. The Academy said that it would be longer than 10,000 years before the nuclear waste was at its peak radiation. The environmental group National Resources Defense Council estimates that peak might not occur for another 300,000 years.
It was good to see the federal appeals court rebuke an agency for not doing its job regarding Yucca Mountain, especially since President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress have been more than happy to please the nuclear power industry, which has fought like mad to get the dump in Nevada approved. "It would have been one thing had EPA taken the Academy's recommendations into account and then tailored a standard that accommodated the agency's policy concerns," the court wrote. "But that is not what the EPA did. Instead, it unabashedly rejected NAS's (the National Academy of Sciences') findings, and then went on to promulgate a dramatically different standard, one that the Academy had expressly rejected."
Even if the EPA goes back and rewrites the regulation to satisfy the Academy, it's still impossible to imagine that the Energy Department could then come up with a dump design that would meet such a high standard. A new plan would certainly require billions of more dollars, a scenario that could doom the dump financially.
It's been obvious all along that Yucca Mountain is an unsafe location to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. It hasn't been easy, however, getting others to heed Nevada's concerns, especially for those states that have nuclear power plants and want to get rid of their waste at any cost. And while the battle is far from over, for now at least we can take considerable comfort in this important court decision.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004
Editorial: ... but fight isn't over
LAS VEGAS SUN
Weekend Edition
July 10 - 11, 2004
Attorney General Brian Sandoval, after Friday's federal appeals court ruling on the government's plan to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, went as far as to say that "Yucca Mountain is dead." While we believe that this should be the end of the line for the project after the favorable court decision, we're not as optimistic that this project has been deep-sixed. We're still concerned that President Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress could undo the court's decision by passing a law that would set more lax safety standards for the Environmental Protection Agency to meet. In addition, the court's decision will be appealed, and there is no way to predict how this Supreme Court might rule.
The federal appeals court's ruling is a major reason why Nevadans should think very carefully about handing Bush this state's electoral votes in November. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has promised to put an end to the Yucca Mountain project. Bush has already shown us his colors by promising one thing during the 2000 campaign -- using "sound science" to determine the project's fate -- and doing another after he was elected when, in 2002, he persuaded Congress to approve the dump. Any Nevadan, concerned about their health and safety and that of generations to come must be keenly aware that this may be our last, best chance to stop Yucca Mountain in its tracks.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 09, 2004
Columnist Jeff German: Yucca ruling exposes Bush lies
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.
Weekend Edition
July 10 - 11, 2004
If ever there was proof that "sound science" did not play a role in the selection of Yucca Mountain, it was handed to Nevada on a silver platter last week by a federal appeals court in Washington.
The court found that the Environmental Protection Agency deliberately rejected the advice of the scientific community and adopted standards for the high-level nuclear waste dump that weren't safe for Nevadans.
President Bush used those standards when he recommended Yucca Mountain to Congress in 2002, which means there is no way in the world that his decision was based on "sound science," as he promised on the campaign trail here in 2000.
The court's ruling is proof that the president out-and-out lied to us. And it is proof that his nuclear waste policy, which is beholden to the powerful nuclear industry, is rotten to the core.
The heart of the court's opinion is that the EPA unlawfully ignored the research of the National Academy of Sciences when it decided that the radioactive waste only had to be safely stored inside the nearby mountain for 10,000 years. The academy recommended that the safety standard be set for a far longer period, hundreds of thousands of years.
Unless it appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and prevails, the Bush administration now has two options. It can order the EPA to begin the long and tedious process of formulating tougher safety standards it knows Yucca Mountain probably can't meet. Or, with the help of big energy money, it can try to convince Congress to snub the appeals court and change the law to allow the weaker, unsafe EPA standards.
Neither option can be politically appealing to the administration.
And do you think the president is looking forward to meeting the voters of Nevada in the coming weeks having been exposed as a liar? Do you think he wants to keep hearing that his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, has pledged to kill the dump he's forcing upon us?
I don't think so.
The one person smiling more than the top Nevada officials who fought hard to earn this legal victory is Kerry, who knows the court decision has improved his chances of winning the state's five electoral votes.
"It makes Kerry look better every day," said Sen. Harry Reid, Nevada's Democratic patriarch, who called the court decision a "serious wound" to Yucca Mountain.
Nevadans have an incentive to vote for a president who would use any means available to him to stop the dump -- even vetoing congressional legislation aimed at lessening its safety standards.
The ultimate irony here is that what happens in Nevada, a key battleground state, could easily determine the outcome of the presidential race. That means Bush's flawed and mean-spirited Yucca Mountain policy could end up leading to his political demise.
On Friday the Kerry campaign was quick to capitalize on the appeals court ruling.
"The court decision," the campaign said, "confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows -- that the Bush administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository."
About the same time, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement from Washington furthering the Yucca Mountain lie.
"Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain Project is sound," Abraham said. "The project will protect the public health and safety."
The contrasting words illustrated once more the clear choice Nevada voters have in the race for president this November.
We can vote for the candidate who is working to put the deadliest substance known to man in our backyard. Or we can vote for the candidate who is vowing to kill the project.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 11, 2004
Court decision makes Yucca moot issue in campaign, GOP says
Anjeanette Damon
The federal court´s rejection of the government´s safety standards for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump has made the project a moot issue in this year´s presidential campaign, Nevada Republicans say.
But Democrats, who never miss an opportunity to hammer on President Bush for approving the site, said the decision makes it even more crucial to elect a candidate committed to stopping the project.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Friday handed the federal government a setback when it ruled the Environmental Protection Agency acted illegally when it limited the standards for protecting the public from radiation to 10,000 years. The court reaffirmed a federal law that requires the EPA to follow guidelines set by the National Academy of Science, which say the public must be protected for at least 300,000 years.
Nevada officials said the decision spells the end of the project since it could take years to fix the environmental standard.
But the U.S. Department of Energy remains committed to seeing the project through and have several avenues left to pursue, including appealing the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking Congress to change the law or ordering the EPA to rewrite the standard.
That means Nevadans should vote for a presidential candidate who would stop the appeals process before it resulted in 77,000 tons of the nation´s most radioactive waste coming to the state, said Chris Wicker, chairman of the Washoe County Democratic Party.
“If John Kerry is elected, it means the death of the project,’ Wicker said.
Kerry has said he opposes nuclear waste being sent to Yucca Mountain.
Gov. Kenny Guinn, who is co-chairman of Bush´s re-election campaign in Nevada, said there´s not much the president can do now, no matter who is elected.
“He doesn´t take any action,’ Guinn said. “His people go back to the drawing board. It´s somebody else´s issue now. Candidate Kerry is saying he would stop it, but I don´t know how he could stop it. Now we have the court say it is not sound science. I don´t know what either can do at this point.’
Bush approved Yucca Mountain as the site of the nation´s nuclear waste dump in 2002, after his secretary of energy, Spencer Abraham, recommended it. Bush´s decision came after his 2000 campaign pledge not to approve the site unless it was “deemed scientifically safe.’
Guinn has said he and the president have “agreed to disagree’ on the Yucca Mountain issue. Guinn and state Attorney General Brian Sandoval have led the latest fight on Yucca Mountain, despite heading the president´s re-election campaign in Nevada.
“The court´s decision confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows -- that the Bush administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository,’ said Sean Smith, Kerry´s Nevada spokesman. “A Kerry-Edwards administration will protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump.’
The Bush-Cheney campaign countered that Bush based his decision on “20 years and $4 billion in scientific study.’
“While Democrats and the John Kerry campaign continue to play politics with this issue, our campaign will continue to focus on the clear choice between President Bush´s steady leadership and John Kerry´s baseless rhetoric,’ said Tracey Schmitt, a Bush campaign spokeswoman.
Bush´s Democratic opponents said the court´s decision further bolstered their claim that Bush lied when he promised to base his Yucca Mountain decision on sound science, rather than politics.
At the heart of the ruling is a scientific standard that governs how long the nuclear waste would be safe buried deep inside the volcanic ridge, 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
“This is a president that used flawed judgment and he applied that flawed judgment to Yucca Mountain,’ said Mark Benoit, spokesman for America Coming Together, a political nonprofit group committed to defeating Bush. “It´s like George Bush handed us this club and said, ‘hit me over the head with this.´ ’
Nearly all of ACT´s campaign rhetoric in Nevada focuses on Yucca Mountain.
Beyond presidential politics, Yucca Mountain could become an issue during the next state legislative session, set to begin Feb. 7.
Last year, the Legislature funded Guinn´s request for $3 million to fight Yucca Mountain. Most of that money, as well as donations from private interests and local governments, has been spent in the legal challenge.
About $1 million remains in the fund, said Bob Loux, director of the state´s nuclear projects agency.
The state will need continued funding to fight the federal government as it pursues a license for the project and if it appeals the court decision.
Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, and Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, said Friday that they believe the Legislature will remain committed to fight Yucca Mountain.
“I don´t see how we could back away from supporting the attorney general,’ Anderson said.
But Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick has said he toured the site, believes it´s safe and thinks the state should begin negotiating for benefits from the project. Hettrick could not be reached for comment Friday.
“As soon as Mr. Hettrick goes back to Washington and comes back with some offer, maybe someone will listen to him,’ Townsend said. “To the best of my knowledge, the federal government hasn´t put anything on the table.’
John Hadder, Northern Nevada director of Citizen Alert, an anti-Yucca Mountain group, said the federal court´s decision underlines why it is important for the state not to begin negotiations.
“If we had, we Nevada would not be in the position to forward these lawsuits,’ he said.
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St. George Daily Spectrum
July 11, 2004
How safe will nuclear waste really be?
IN OUR VIEW:
It was no surprise Friday when a federal appeals court rejected Nevada's arguments against building a nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain.
The decision leaves in place the Bush administration's plan to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste, mostly from spent reactor fuel from the nation's commercial power plants, at the Nevada facility.
What is surprising, however, is the fact that in the same ruling, the court ordered the government to develop a plan to protect the public against radiation releases beyond the 10,000 years it has already promised.
The question is are we sure that the Department of Energy plans will, indeed, protect the public from radiation exposure for the next 10,000 years? Is there sufficient science to be able to prove such a statement at this point? Would 20,000 years be enough?
This radioactive material is something that the National Academy of Sciences has told us can be dangerous for up to 300,000 years.
Las Vegas, one of the most rapidly growing cities in the country, is only 90 miles away from the Yucca Mountain facility. An innocent Southern Utah population that was unconscionably drenched with nuclear fallout during the detonations at the Nevada Test Site sits just a little farther downwind. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control, as many as 15,000 people nationwide were killed by fallout from the Nevada Test Site.
What disasters -- manmade or natural -- can this storage site handle? How can we truly know what kinds of weapons or other dangers will be in place 10,000 years from now? Worst of all, if something goes wrong at Yucca Mountain, will this corner of the planet even be habitable 10,000 years from now?
Excuse us for being suspicious, but we've been down this road before.
That's why we strongly support our neighboring state and encourage our state and local leaders to join in the fight against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issuing a license for the Yucca Mountain facility.
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SpaceDaily
July 09, 2004
US court upholds Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, with tougher protection
WASHINGTON (AFP) Jul 09, 2004
A US appeals court Friday upheld a federal plan to create the only permanent US nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but said tougher radiation protection standards must be enacted.
The federal appeals court dismissed a challenge from the state of Nevada, local communities, the nuclear energy industry and environmental groups seeking to scuttle the plan.
But in a partial victory for opponents, the court also overturned a plan by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect the public from radiation for 10,000 years, saying the government must protect against radiation leaks for a longer period, following recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences.
Environmentalists and Nevada leaders cheered the partial victory, saying it could kill the Yucca Mountain project.
"On one of the most crucial issues in the Yucca case, the court has sent EPA back to the drawing board to write a radiation protection standard that safeguards public health," said Geoff Fettus, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council who argued the case for the environmental groups.
"When dealing with a project of the magnitude of a nuclear waste repository, the law requires that EPA do it right rather than rush it through."
Under the best case, the nuclear storage site will not go into use until at least 2010. A workable waste storage site is deemed essential if nuclear power is to expand in the United States.
The Yucca Mountain waste repository is designed to house up to 70,000 tonnes of radioactive waste deep underground.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was "pleased" with the ruling on the site selection.
As for the ruling on radiation standards, he said, his agency "will be working with the EPA and Congress to determine appropriate steps to address this issue."
The court ruled that the decision by the Department of Energy and the president leading to the selection of the Yucca Mountain site is "unreviewable."
But the court cited a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report saying there was "no scientific basis for limiting the time period of the individual risk standard to 10,000 years or any other value."
"It would have been one thing had EPA taken the Academy's recommendations into account and then tailored a standard that accommodated the agency's policy concerns," the justices wrote. "But that is not what EPA did. Instead, it unabashedly rejected NAS's findings, and then went on to promulgate a dramatically different standard, one that the academy had expressly rejected."
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Senator John Ensign
July 9, 2004
ENSIGN CELEBRATES YUCCA DECISION
Statement by Senator Ensign regarding today´s decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with the state of Nevada in its fight to stop Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation´s nuclear dumping ground:
“Today´s court ruling provides Nevada a crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all. 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.’
--Senator John Ensign
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Congressman Jim Gibbons
July 9, 2004
Gibbons Statement on Federal Appeals Court Ruling on Yucca Mountain
Decision is an Historic Victory for Nevada
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) released the following statement regarding the federal appeals court ruling in favor of the State of Nevada which rejected the EPA safety standard currently being used for Yucca Mountain. The court ordered the federal government to develop a plan to protect the public against radiation releases beyond the proposed 10,000 years.
“Today´s decision is an historic victory for Nevada. I have always said that only before an unbiased court would Nevada receive a fair forum on Yucca Mountain. Today´s ruling reiterates what many Nevadans have said all along– that the science behind the Yucca Mountain project was unsafe and unsound.
“I applaud the diligent work and commitment of the state´s attorneys and our Attorney General, Brian Sandoval. Today´s court decision deals a major blow to the Yucca Mountain project and is good news for the people of Nevada.
“The court found that the EPA must abide by the law and rely upon the expert scientific findings of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). In fact, the EPA´s inadequate and arbitrary safety standard completely disregarded the recommendations of the NAS that had called for a standard of compliance for hundreds of thousands of years, instead of only 10,000.
“As a result of the court´s decision, the EPA must now promulgate a new safety standard that can show compliance well beyond 10,000 years. That will be a high standard to meet, and one that I doubt the DOE could realistically meet. Ultimately, today´s ruling creates a monumental obstacle and uncertain delay in the licensing process for Yucca Mountain.’
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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Congressman Jon Porter
July 9, 2004
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JON PORTER PRAISES TODAY´S YUCCA DECISION
U.S. Court of Appeals rules favorably for Nevada
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Jon Porter (R-NV) praised the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit´s ruling from the January 14 hearing on the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain:
“Today´s decision is a big win for Nevada. The decision is ultimately a huge setback for the Department of Energy and the Yucca Mountain Project. The court ruled that the EPA did not follow the law when developing radiation standards. While I fully expect the federal government to appeal this ruling, today´s decision will clearly delay the project and possibly end it.
“The Yucca Mountain project has been of intense personal interest to me and all Nevadans. I have been personally involved in the fight to stop Yucca for 20 years. The Yucca Project has been supported by both Republicans and Democrats, and I will continue to fight against this project and will not rest until the storage of nuclear waste is no longer an option and the doors of Yucca Mountain are closed shut forever.
“We know the Department of Energy bent the rules to find the site suitable. Today, it is clear that sound science and common sense have prevailed over political expediency.
I join with Nevada´s delegation in celebrating this victory. I want to congratulate our Attorney General Brian Sandoval and our world-class legal team, headed up by Mr. Joseph Egan. We could not ask for a more competent and capable group of men and women than the one comprised by the State of Nevada.’
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 10, 2004
Yucca Mountain Decision: State claims court win
EPA's standard for 10,000 years of safe storage ruled inadequate
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- After defeat upon defeat in the fight to stop the nation's most lethal nuclear waste from being buried in Nevada, state leaders said Friday that a decisive blow at last had been dealt to the Yucca Mountain Project.
State officials were jubilant after a panel of federal judges threw out a key health and safety standard in the federal government's plans to build a repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit invalidated a requirement that the repository be able to contain radioactive materials safely for at least 10,000 years, suggesting the period should be longer by possibly hundreds of thousands of years.
"For those who say Yucca Mountain is coming, throw in the towel -- the fight is not over," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., at a news conference in the lobby of the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse. "I think today's court ruling is a significant victory for the state of Nevada."
The ruling could derail the Yucca project for an indefinite period while federal agencies seek relief from Congress, pursue new rounds of legal appeals --possibly to the Supreme Court -- or rework their rules to the liking of the court.
A 100-page opinion, long awaited since judges heard technical arguments in January, dissected about a dozen points that the state of Nevada, environmental groups and the Nuclear Energy Institute had made in a half-dozen lawsuits. Attorneys said the state prevailed on points of varying significance, including key arguments against the health standards implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Yet the state lost several of its major claims, including a novel argument that the government had violated the U.S. Constitution by designating Nevada for nuclear waste burial over the state's objections. The mixed ruling allowed backers of the project also to claim victory.
"This is a very broad and sweeping win for the Yucca Mountain Program and is exactly what most observers expected, having observed the court arguments," said former Nevada Gov. Bob List, a paid consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute. "While it is clear that the EPA will be required to revise its regulations, and that the modeling for project compliance will be adjusted accordingly, I do not expect significant delay to occur."
Attorney General Brian Sandoval said he believes the ruling spells the end of the Yucca Mountain Project, the repository the state has resisted for 17 years at a cost of $3 million in mounting its broad legal challenge.
"In my heart I believe that," Sandoval said. "The Energy Department and the EPA now have to meet higher standards, and Yucca just can't accomplish that."
After learning of the ruling, Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of the statewide environmental group Citizen Alert, immediately began telephoning donors asking for money to expand her group's campaign against nuclear waste disposal in the state. Citizen Alert is a party to the winning lawsuit.
Maze Johnson was meeting with inspectors from the NRC when she got word of the decision.
"I just yelled, 'We won,' " she said. "The decision today said start from zero and send it back."
Reaction from officials in three agencies involved with the Yucca project -- the EPA, the NRC and the Department of Energy -- was more muted.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement saying the decision validated all the Energy Department's work leading up to the 2002 designation of Yucca Mountain as a repository site.
"I am pleased with today's decisions handed down by the court," he said. "The court dismissed all challenges to the site selection of Yucca Mountain."
But according to Sandoval, Nevada's victory was on a key point, one "fundamental to the basis for site selection, licensing, groundwater and other issues."
The decision was the deepest blow to a suddenly reeling repository effort, which already had been buffeted by a series of recent setbacks.
The Yucca project faces deep 2005 budget cuts that DOE officials said could force as many as 1,700 layoffs in the coming months. Additionally, the department's handling of a licensing database has come under criticism, leading to appointment of a hearing panel to resolve the dispute.
Managers in the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management also have acknowledged that they are eyeing the presidential race, in which Democrat John Kerry has vowed to terminate the Yucca project and put them out of jobs if he is elected.
"Yucca Mountain is not over; everyone has to understand that," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "But the state has been getting some tremendously important breaks. This is news for all those naysayers who said we should give up and negotiate.
"This is a wound to a giant. It's a severe wound, but wounds heal."
The federal judges -- Harry T. Edwards, David S. Tatel and Karen LeCraft Henderson -- issued a clear assessment that the Bush administration rejected "sound science" in advancing the repository, said Joe Egan, the state's lead nuclear waste lawyer.
The judges invalidated an EPA standard requiring that the Energy Department prove the Yucca repository could shield the public from escaping radioactive elements from decaying nuclear waste for 10,000 years. In setting the 10,000-year standard, the EPA arbitrarily disregarded the recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences panel that had been ordered by Congress, the judges said.
The scientists said the radiation protections should be extended beyond 10,000 years to points when the greatest risk of radiation exposures might occur. That could be anywhere between several hundred thousand years to a million years, they said.
The EPA "unabashedly rejected NAS's findings," the judges said in their opinion.
The ruling raised questions of how long it would take for EPA to form new regulations and for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to incorporate them into its licensing guidelines. Also, could DOE meet a different standard?
Egan said the judges, in another part of their decision, also confirmed that Nevada would be allowed to contest a broad range of environmental and administrative issues during Yucca licensing, if the program makes it that far.
However, Angelina Howard, executive vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, contended that the program setback was relatively minor.
"We think the agencies can accommodate that, and it shouldn't affect the schedule," Howard said, choosing to emphasize other segments of the ruling in which the government prevailed.
Abraham spokesman Joe Davis said DOE attorneys could not determine immediately how the court's ruling would affect the Yucca project. The department has a December target to submit a repository license application to the NRC, with hopes of opening a Yucca facility in 2010.
"Obviously, you can't get a license for Yucca Mountain without a standard, and now you don't have a standard because the court has vacated it," said Kevin Crowley, director of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management, a division of the National Academy of Sciences.
A DOE official who asked not to be identified said the court "has set forth some avenues of opportunity for us, and we're looking at those. You could appeal, the EPA could set another standard, or you could go to Congress. "
The judges suggested that EPA might ask Congress to intervene and pass legislation giving agencies permission to maintain the standard.
Reid, who has blocked other initiatives to speed up nuclear waste burial in Nevada, said chances are slim that such a Yucca Mountain bill would pass.
"I dare them to do it," he said. "Let's see them try."
Staffers for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, were reviewing the opinion, according to spokeswoman Marnie Funk.
"This will be a topic of considerable discussion in the next few weeks, but it's a little early now to give a response," Funk said.
Yucca Mountain is expected to be discussed at a hearing Domenici scheduled for Tuesday to highlight the nuclear energy industry, Funk said.
Although applauding the ruling, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he feared what the nuclear industry and the Energy Department might do next.
"I don't trust Washington," Porter said. "We are dealing with 550-plus politicians and politics and the industry and the Department of Energy. I am sorry, but I don't trust."
Review-Journal writers Henry Brean and Erin Neff contributed to this report.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 10, 2004
Opinions on Yucca Mountain vary in scientific community
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Scientists familiar with the Yucca Mountain Project offered differing opinions Friday on the now-uncertain future of the decades-long, multibillion-dollar effort to dispose of high-level nuclear waste.
A federal appeals court determined Friday that an Environmental Protection Agency standard for the repository, which required that it safely contain radioactivity for at least 10,000 years, was inadequate.
One scientist said any attempt to complete the repository should be dropped and the Department of Energy should start looking for another site to dispose of the nation's 77,000 tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive waste.
Another said the EPA must either appeal the ruling or establish another safety standard for containing the waste.
A third scientist said the 10,000-year protection period, adopted in 2001, might be adequate. However, the EPA, based on the ruling, probably needs to do a better job of explaining why it selected 10,000 years instead of 200,000 years or more, when people would be most at risk from radioactive releases.
"What it means is that the site should be removed from consideration because DOE's own calculations show it can't meet a reasonable safety standard," said geologist Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.
Friday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit said the EPA failed to follow a 1995 recommendation by National Academy of Sciences, which held that the safety standard should include the periods of greatest radioactive risk and not necessarily be limited to 10,000 years.
"The geology of Yucca Mountain is not conducive to isolate waste. This is what we've been saying for years," he said.
Frishman said if Yucca Mountain's geology could isolate the waste without relying on metal alloy containers to last for 40,000 years, "then the compliance period wouldn't matter because the waste would be isolated."
"But in this case, Yucca Mountain's vulnerability is shown by the fact that the highest risks occur after that 10,000-year period. ... This doesn't prove there is anything fundamentally wrong with geologic disposal. It shows there's something wrong with Yucca Mountain," he said.
Kevin Crowley, a geologist who directs the National Academies' Board on Radioactive Waste Management, noted that the court didn't throw out the whole standard, but instead vacated one part of it.
"The most significant part of that, in my opinion, is the court didn't necessarily say you couldn't have a 10,000-year standard but said, 'We didn't like the way you (EPA) arrived at the 10,000-year standard," said Crowley.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must determine the repository can safely contain radioactivity to license its construction. If the EPA pursues a new safety standard, the Energy Department's plans to submit a license application to the NRC in December could be pushed back years.
Said Crowley: "Over the long term, you can't have a license for Yucca Mountain if you don't have a standard. I don't think this means Yucca Mountain is dead or you need another site."
Congress asked the National Research Council to develop a technical basis for Yucca Mountain radiation standards in 1992. Three years later, a 15-member committee recommended the EPA base the standards on calculated risks of people dying from exposure to radioactive contaminants that might escape the planned repository rather than setting limits on the amount of radioactive materials that could escape.
In June 2001, the EPA finalized a 15-millirem annual dose limit to protect people from releases from the mountain. A separate standard, 4 millirems, was set for groundwater used for crops and livestock.
The 15-millirem standard applies to people who might live as close as 11 miles from the repository site. In comparison, a chest X-ray can result in up to a 10-millirem dose.
People are exposed to about 360 millirems of so-called background radiation each year from natural sources and fallout, according to the EPA. The 15-millirem dose is considered separate from annual exposure to background radiation.
John Millett, an EPA spokesman in Washington, D.C., had no immediate comment Friday on the ruling other than to say, "We're going to review it and determine what next steps to take as soon as possible."
In recommending that the compliance period cover the time when the greatest risk from exposure occurs, the National Academies committee noted that it is possible to estimate how effectively the repository could contain waste for up to 1 million years.
But in a 1999 letter about the issue to the EPA, Lake Barrett, who was the Energy Department's acting radioactive waste management chief, said that a significantly longer period than 10,000 years for assessing compliance would be unprecedented and unworkable.
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site the Energy Department has studied extensively for the long-term storage of spent fuel assemblies from the nation's commercial nuclear power reactors. So far, $8 billion has been spent on the project, and plans have called for spending an additional $50 billion to license and construct a repository and haul the waste there in the coming decades.
Energy Department scientists have not spent a lot of time calculating how waste containers would corrode beyond 10,000 years and how that corrosion would affect potential releases of radioactivity, said Per Peterson, chairman of the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
He said if future generations of Nevadans are living in a world where they are not sampling groundwater for safety "what does that imply? In some ways we may be providing a rather high standard of protection."
"Clearly it's an important ruling," Peterson said. "On the matter of the policy associated with whether or not 10,000 years compliance is adequate, I think the 10,000-year protection is adequate compared to most of the things we do."
Chart: Radiation Release
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-10-Sat-2004/photos/yuccagraf.jpg
Deadly Decaying Waste
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-10-Sat-2004/photos/yuccabar.jpg
Map: Yucca Mountain
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-10-Sat-2004/photos/yuccamap.jpg
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 10, 2004
Editorial: A lot more than 10,000 years
But will court ruling kill Yucca Mountain, or just send DOE back to the computers?
Reactions in Nevada were markedly different from those elsewhere Friday, after a federal appeals court ruled the U.S. government must prove the public would be safe from Yucca Mountain radiation leaks for a lot longer than 10,000 years.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that contrary to the interpretation of the EPA, a 1995 National Academy of Sciences report found "no scientific basis for limiting the time period of the individual risk standard to 10,000 years." So, the government must prove the dump would be safe for a lot longer than that, the court ruled.
How much longer?
"Radioactive waste and its harmful consequences persist for time spans seemingly beyond human comprehension," the court noted. "For example, iodine-129, one of the radionuclides expected to be buried at Yucca Mountain, has a half-life of seventeen million years. ... Neptunium-237, also expected to be deposited in Yucca Mountain, has a half-life of over two million years."
If the court means the federal government has to prove Yucca Mountain won't leak for millions of years, one would think that means, "Put a fork in it; it's done." And the generally jubilant reaction in Nevada took that tone.
But in some quarters the ruling was viewed differently, based on the fact that the 10,000-year standard was the only part of Nevada's challenge to Yucca Mountain that the panel embraced.
So: will the rejection of the radiation safety standard kill the waste dump, being planned for a volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas?
The great risk, of course, is that cynical federal bureaucrats will merely take this as an order to go back to their word-processing programs, carefully inserting "safe for millions and millions of years" every place they formerly claimed the Yucca Mountain hole-in-the ground would be "safe for 10,000 years."
In doing so, they would hope that the federal judges can be counted on to throw up their hands, saying, "We're not scientists. What do we know? If the government experts now contend this thing will be safe for millions of years, so be it."
Unfortunately, federal judges have been known to behave just this way in the Yucca Mountain matter -- in the face of considerable scientific malarkey -- more than once.
The big problem in trying to apply any "scientific" standard to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump has always been that the Department of Energy -- driven by its desire to please all those big utility companies sitting on ponds full of spent fuel rods, as well as a Congress that decades ago told those power companies, "Don't worry; we'll take care of it" -- tends to defines "science" as "whatever fancy talk will justify continuing to build this thing."
What real science tells us, of course, is that the radioactivity that was supposed to take a century to reach the groundwater in Hanford, Wash., in fact took less than a decade. A foot-thick steel reactor vessel cap in Ohio that was presumed to be impervious to dripping dilute boric acid for centuries was in fact eaten away to little more than rust-colored dust in only a few years.
In the face of these kinds of revelations, federal officials have gradually shifted from arguing the rocks of Yucca Mountain will provide the main safeguard for the waste (mostly spent reactor fuel from commercial power plants), to a current mathematical formula that says the waste cannisters themselves will provide 99.7 percent of the dump's safety factor -- Yucca Mountain's geology a mere 0.008 percent.
In which case -- why bother burying it?
As to the notion that a single site will be safer against terrorism: The government says 46,000 tons of spent fuel rods are now stored at 131 sites. But since most of the nuclear plants will continue to operate, waste levels at those sites will never fall below 42,000 tons, even when Yucca Mountain reaches its 77,000-ton capacity.
So why accept the risk of all that cross-country shipping, if the nation will never be rid of all those spread-out, "terror-vulnerable" sites?
In a world where real science -- and concern for the safety of future generations -- outweighed mere political convenience, what Friday's appellate court ruling should mean is, "You had to bend like a contortionist to contend underground storage would be safe for 10,000 years, and now the court is talking about millions of years? Stop digging; let's think about a way to guard this stuff where it sits while we re-examine recycling technologies."
Retrievable above-ground storage -- somewhere -- would make more sense. Such a plan would make the waste easier to monitor (and, eventually, recycle) while minimizing heat build-up and danger from earthquakes.
But should Nevadans assume that kind of common sense will prevail?
It comes down to your opinion of the federal government.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 10, 2004
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS RULINGS ON MAJOR CHARGES
Here are the major charges contained in Yucca Mountain lawsuits filed by Nevada and environmental groups and how U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on them Friday:
>> DENIED
• Charge: EPA "gerrymandered" a radiation control area to maximize the chances the repository could comply with health rules
• Court ruling: "Record evidence supports EPA ... seems reasonable to us."
>> DENIED
• Charge: EPA "gerrymandered" a radiation control area to maximize the chances the repository could comply with health rules.
• Comment: "Record evidence supports EPA ... seems reasonable to us."
>> AGREED
• Charge: EPA setting 10,000-year compliance for radiation protections is "arbitrary and capricious."
• Comment: EPA "unabashedly rejected" scientists' recommendations for longer protective standard.
>> AGREED
• Charge: NRC "breached its duty" to protect health and safety by limiting repository performance standards to 10,000 years.
• Comment: "We ... direct NRC to reconsider the period on remand."
>> DENIED
• Charge: NRC in violation of federal nuclear waste law by not requiring Yucca Mountain geology to be the "primary" means of isolating radioactive materials.
• Comment: Law "contains no language indicating the NRC is to assign a rating to any single barrier."
>> DENIED
• Charge: Energy secretary failed to complete site characterization before recommendation; DOE site suitability criteria, president's recommendation and final environmental impact statement all illegal.
• Comment: Enactment of repository selection law in July 2002 "rendered moot Nevada's challenges."
>> DENIED
• Charge: Yucca Mountain selection unconstitutional.
• Comment: "Property clause clearly provides an adequate source of constitutional authority."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 10, 2004
Letter: Sound science
To the editor:
On the issue of Yucca Mountain and "sound science": What is it? Is this some scientific formula that is used to provide a yea or nay answer? Is it a group of paid scientists on one side of the issue saying "bad" and another group saying "good"?
The fact that waste is stored in less secure areas of the United States already, is this "sound science"? If so, let's apply it to Yucca Mountain.
The columnists in the Review-Journal continue to use "sound science" as a rallying point, but they never seem have the required data to support their opinion. They just like the issue. They never attack the storage of nuclear weapons using the "sound science" issue.
In any construction project, there are thousands of pages of specifications to complete the project. Have they been meet? I ask again: What is "sound science"?
Gerald R. Carrick
North Las Vegas
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Nevada Appeal
July 10, 2004
Ruling halts Yucca Mountain plan
Geoff Dornan
gdornan@nevadaappeal.com
Nevada officials praised an appeal court decision Friday on Yucca Mountain, proclaiming it a victory that should kill the project.
"Simply put, Yucca is stopped in its tracks because the court recognizes that the project isn't rooted in sound science," said Attorney General Brian Sandoval, echoing President Bush's words when he promised in 2000 to base his decision on the nuclear-waste dump on "sound science."
While Gov. Kenny Guinn didn't go that far, he said the ruling was a setback that would at least delay the project for years.
The Washington, D.C.-based court rejected most of Nevada's arguments, including a challenge to the constitutionality of Congress' resolution ordering construction of the radioactive-waste repository in the remote Nevada desert.
The court supported only one point in Nevada's challenge: that the Environmental Protection Agency ignored a law requiring it build a dump site that meets the National Academy of Science findings. The academy says the waste must be isolated for at least 300,000 years - the length of time it will remain dangerous to life on earth.
EPA's regulation requires the Department of Energy prove the dump will keep the waste isolated only for 10,000 years.
"It unabashedly rejected NAS's findings and went on to promulgate a dramatically different standard, one that the academy had expressly rejected," the court ruled.
The court ordered EPA to revise its standards to match the NAS findings, a process that could take several years, or return to Congress and get permission to ignore them, a prospect that observers called unlikely.
"It was Congress that required EPA to rely on NAS's expert scientific judgment and, given the serious risks nuclear waste disposal poses for the health and welfare of the American people, it is up to Congress - not EPA and not this court - to authorize departures from the prevailing statutory scheme," the court said.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had a very different take on the ruling, saying he was pleased.
"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 led to the passage of that resolution by Congress," he said.
He added that the Energy Department will address the radiation standard rejected by the court and move forward with the project, which would send 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from sites around the country to a massive repository buried inside Yucca Mountain, which is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas
Sandoval and Guinn said they don't think DOE can fix the problem because it would require throwing out the safety rules.
"This is a critical issue," said Guinn. "It's the safety of the people of this country that counts."
"If they can't get this approval, then they can't get licensing, and if they can't get a license you don't have a project."
Sandoval said even the former head of the Yucca project, Lake Barrett, testified at one point DOE could not meet the tough NAS requirement. Sandoval said he doesn't think DOE will ever be able to prove Yucca Mountain safe for 300,000 years.
The repository was scheduled to open in 2010, but it first must obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The three judges who made Friday's decision, a panel of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, were Harry Edwards, Karen Henderson and David Tatel.
Bush's promise to make his decision on "sound science" has become an issue in this year's presidential campaign, with Democrats charging he lied to the people of Nevada and approved the project almost as soon as it arrived on his desk.
Republicans raised the issue themselves when the party broke with their governor and congressional delegation this year and included a platform plank calling for the state to accept that the dump is inevitable and to seek compensation from the federal government for taking it.
Contact Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.
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Nevada Appeal
July 10, 2004
Nevada officials declare victory after Yucca Mountain ruling
Ken Ritter
LAS VEGAS - Nevada officials declared victory Friday in their fight to stop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, saying they don't think the Energy Department can meet a stricter standard to protect the public against radiation releases.
"The people of Nevada should throw up their arms and cheer at this court ruling," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., referring to a federal court decision requiring the Energy Department to contain radiation for longer than 10,000 years at the Yucca Mountain site.
Friday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected Nevada's main arguments against the constitutionality of forcing one state to take all the nation's nuclear waste.
But justices did uphold arguments that Environmental Protection Agency radiation standards for the site were inadequate and would have to be strengthened.
Berkley said that by tossing out the EPA radiation standard, the court has said "the Bush Administration's plan for Yucca Mountain will not protect the health and safety of Nevada residents."
In a statement, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham noted the court dismissed the state's challenges to the selection of the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and said the department will work with the EPA and Congress to address the ruling on the radiation standard.
"Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain project is sound," Abraham said. "The project will protect the public health and safety."
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said it was unclear whether the ruling would delay plans to begin the process of applying for a license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the dump. The department had planned to open the repository in 2010.
Joe Egan, a lawyer who argued the state's case, said the Energy Department will not be able to meet a National Academy of Sciences recommendation that the site be made safe for 350,000 years and will not be able to get a license.
"We think we put a stake through the heart of this project," Egan said.
Sen. John Kerry's campaign issued a statement praising the decision and criticizing President Bush for allowing the project to move forward. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and Massachusetts senator voted against the project in 2002.
"The Court's decision confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows - that the Bush Administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository," said Sean Smith, a Kerry spokesman in Nevada.
The Bush campaign referenced exhaustive studies proving Yucca Mountain is "scientifically and technically suitable for development."
"John Kerry is politicizing this issue in an effort to distract Nevadans from his troubling record on strengthening the economy, lowering health care costs, and protecting our homeland," said Tracey Schmitt, a Bush campaign spokeswoman.
But Nevada's congressional leaders hailed the ruling as a "major victory," and citizens' groups were elated.
"I love it. It means they have to go back to square one and do all this refiguring," said Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, an anti-nuclear group in Nevada.
"Their whole house of cards is balanced against the fact that they only have to comply for 10,000 years," said Judy Treichel, head of the Nuclear Waste Task Force and a longtime Yucca Mountain opponent. "We said that's ridiculous because the stuff will probably get out before, but certainly after that time and contaminate Nevada."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the ruling was a "significant blow to the Department of Energy and the Yucca Mountain project, and I believe enough to effectively kill the project."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was similarly optimistic, saying the decision gives Nevada a "crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all."
Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican whose veto of Yucca Mountain was overridden by Congress in 2002, said he interpreted the court decision to mean there can be no movement toward licensing in the near future.
"You can't do much more without a license," he said.
The governor said the Energy Department could go to Congress for a change in the law or to seek an EPA rule change, adding that either would take time.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 09, 2004
The dump´s dead, say Yucca foes
Both sides claim victory after ruling: Nevada loses most of its arguments, but feds must review safety standard.
Doug Abrahms
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday threw out most of Nevada´s legal arguments to stop Yucca Mountain but handed the Silver State one victory that could delay or possibly derail building the nuclear waste repository.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said the government had to make sure Nevadans would be protected from radiation for more than 10,000 years, which was the standard set for Yucca Mountain.
Energy Department officials called it a technical point that could be remedied, but Nevada officials said it would halt the waste dump.
“The project´s over. It´s effectively dead,’ said Bob Loux, who heads the state´s Agency for Nuclear Projects, which opposes Yucca Mountain. “In our view, we´re planning the party.’
The court rejected all but one of Nevada´s arguments, including its challenge of the process for designating Yucca Mountain as the nation´s nuclear waste dump and its challenge of the constitutionality of the federal government taking Nevada´s rights to the land.
But the court said the government´s 10,000-year safety standard for radiation needs to be reviewed.
The 10,000-year standard is a crucial issue for determining whether to build the waste dump at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But it remains unclear how the court´s decision will affect the project.
The department was reviewing the decision to determine whether it would slow down the project, said Joe Davis, a Department of Energy spokesman. The Energy Department must file its application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December to stay on schedule to start storing nuclear waste from power plants and government facilities by 2010.
“DOE will be working with the EPA and Congress to determine appropriate steps to address this issue,’ Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement.
Congress wrote a law saying the Environmental Protection Agency was to develop a radiation standard that would prevent humans from being harmed based on recommendations by the National Academies of Science (NAS). The NAS said the peak exposure of radiation to humans would be hundreds of thousands of years, and the nuclear waste repository should be designed to last that long.
But the EPA set the standard at 10,000 years, which would be easier for Yucca Mountain to meet.
The appeals court ruled that the EPA standard was inconsistent with the NAS findings, but did not state what the standard should be.
Joe Egan, an attorney representing Nevada, said EPA will have set a standard far beyond 10,000 years, which Yucca Mountain cannot meet.
“All the performance runs of the repository show that after 10,000 years, it starts to leak (radiation) like a sieve,’ Egan said. “The radiation doses would vastly exceed the EPA´s rule.’
“It´s the ballgame, in our view,’ he said.
Not so, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group representing utility companies.
Congress could pass a law ordering the 10,000-year standard or the government could ask for a rehearing on that one point, said Mike Bauser, associate general counsel for group. Or the EPA could rewrite its rule to solve the problem, he said.
“(Nevada) lost everything except the potential issue of period of compliance,’ Bauser said. “The program, site-selection process and other elements of the program that were challenged all remain intact.’
Nevada officials cheered Friday´s federal appeals court decision on Yucca Mountain:
“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,’ — Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
“Today´s court ruling provides Nevada a crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all,’ — Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
“It´s a great day for Nevada and a great day for those of us who have stood by our convictions. I´ve said in all of my speeches that we filed in four or five different areas and we only really needed to win in one of them.’ —- Gov. Kenny Guinn
“Nevada has been united in its fight. This decision, in part, said there are significant risks to the safety of Nevadans, and I think, the entire country.’ — Former Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 09, 2004
Nevada officials declare victory after Yucca Mountain ruling
Associated Press
Nevada officials declared victory Friday in their fight to stop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, saying they don't think the Energy Department can meet a stricter standard to protect the public against radiation releases.
"The people of Nevada should throw up their arms and cheer at this court ruling," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., referring to a federal court decision requiring the Energy Department to contain radiation for longer than 10,000 years at the Yucca Mountain site.
Friday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected Nevada's main arguments against the constitutionality of forcing one state to take all the nation's nuclear waste.
But justices did uphold arguments that Environmental Protection Agency radiation standards for the site were inadequate and would have to be strengthened.
Berkley said that by tossing out the EPA radiation standard, the court has said "the Bush Administration's plan for Yucca Mountain will not protect the health and safety of Nevada residents."
In a statement, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham noted the court dismissed the state's challenges to the selection of the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and said the department will work with the EPA and Congress to address the ruling on the radiation standard.
"Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain project is sound," Abraham said. "The project will protect the public health and safety."
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said it was unclear whether the ruling would delay plans to begin the process of applying for a license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the dump. The department had planned to open the repository in 2010.
Joe Egan, a lawyer who argued the state's case, said the Energy Department will not be able to meet a National Academy of Sciences recommendation that the site be made safe for 350,000 years and will not be able to get a license.
"We think we put a stake through the heart of this project," Egan said.
Sen. John Kerry's campaign issued a statement praising the decision and criticizing President Bush for allowing the project to move forward. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and Massachusetts senator voted against the project in 2002.
"The Court's decision confirms what John Kerry has been saying all along and what everyone in Nevada knows - that the Bush Administration has turned its back on sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository," said Sean Smith, a Kerry spokesman in Nevada.
The Bush campaign referenced exhaustive studies proving Yucca Mountain is "scientifically and technically suitable for development."
"John Kerry is politicizing this issue in an effort to distract Nevadans from his troubling record on strengthening the economy, lowering health care costs, and protecting our homeland," said Tracey Schmitt, a Bush campaign spokeswoman.
But Nevada's congressional leaders hailed the ruling as a "major victory," and citizens' groups were elated.
"I love it. It means they have to go back to square one and do all this refiguring," said Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, an anti-nuclear group in Nevada.
"Their whole house of cards is balanced against the fact that they only have to comply for 10,000 years," said Judy Treichel, head of the Nuclear Waste Task Force and a longtime Yucca Mountain opponent. "We said that's ridiculous because the stuff will probably get out before, but certainly after that time and contaminate Nevada."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the ruling was a "significant blow to the Department of Energy and the Yucca Mountain project, and I believe enough to effectively kill the project."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was similarly optimistic, saying the decision gives Nevada a "crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all."
Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican whose veto of Yucca Mountain was overridden by Congress in 2002, said he interpreted the court decision to mean there can be no movement toward licensing in the near future.
"You can't do much more without a license," he said.
The governor said the Energy Department could go to Congress for a change in the law or to seek an EPA rule change, adding that either would take time.
Bob Loux, director of the state nuclear projects office and the state's top administrator against the nuclear dump, said it took nine years for the Environmental Protection Agency to set the radiation standard that the court rejected.
"What's going to happen next. I don't know," Loux said.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 10, 2004
Democratic Party platform includes anti-Yucca Mountain plank
By Christina Almeida
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Democrats took a strong position Saturday against a planned southern Nevada nuclear waste repository, approving a plank in the national platform that says the Yucca Mountain project is unsafe.
During a meeting in Hollywood, Fla., the party's platform committee approved the plank proposed by member Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
"It sends a very strong message that the Democratic Party is solidly behind the state of Nevada in its fight against Yucca Mountain," Berkley said in a telephone interview. "It draws a line in the sand and a distinction between the two parties' positions when it comes to the safety of Nevada families."
The platform, which will be presented to delegates later this month at the national convention in Boston, includes party principles on social and economic issues and closely resembles Sen. John Kerry's campaign agenda.
Kerry, the presumptive presidential nominee, voted against the federal government's plan in 2002 and has said "Yucca Mountain will not be a repository" if he wins in November.
"It will take a Democratic president to stop this process dead in its tracks, and John Kerry has already promised to do that," Berkley said.
Yucca Mountain has become a key election-year issue in Nevada, with Democrats pushing Kerry's longtime opposition and citing President Bush's approval of the plan.
Republicans have been somewhat divided. During their state convention, several rural county delegates called for a plank urging negotiations for federal dollars and other benefits in exchange for accepting the dump - an unpopular idea among the state's top Republican leaders.
The Democratic position was somewhat clouded with Kerry's selection of Sen. John Edwards as his running mate. Edwards had voted for the Yucca Mountain project in 2002.
But Edwards has assured state party leaders that he backs Kerry's opposition to the plan - something Republicans say is indicative of the political complexities of the issue.
"The Democrats hardly agree on this issue as evidenced by the last vote when 15 senators and 102 members of Congress voted for this project, including Sen. Edwards," said Yier Shi, spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "The president has always said that the decision on Yucca Mountain would be based on sound science, and we have invested 20 years researching this topic."
The plank reads: "We will protect Nevada and its communities from the high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain which has not been proven to be safe by sound science."
In announcing the plank, Berkley cited Friday's appellate court decision saying radiation standards for the site were inadequate and would have to be strengthened. But the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was not a complete victory for Nevada. The court upheld the government's decision to single out the state as the designated site.
Officials with the Energy Department expressed confidence Friday the radiation issue would be resolved and the plan would move forward.
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NPR
July 10, 2004
Yucca Mountain Ruling Confuses Nuclear Waste Plans
A federal appeals court rejects Nevada's arguments against building a nuclear waste site in the state, but orders the government to develop a new plan to protect the public against radiation releases beyond the proposed 10,000 years. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.
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Deseret News
July 10, 2004
Ruling on Yucca site delays waste delivery
Utah activists fear material coming to Utah in meantime
By Leigh Dethman
Deseret Morning News
Nuclear waste appears to be on its way to Nevada, but thanks to portions of a federal appeals court ruling, it won't get there anytime soon.
It could be coming here in the meantime, say Utah activists who worry that the waste will be stored in Tooele County while regulations for the Nevada site are hammered out.
Nevada's Yucca Valley site has been approved by a U.S. appeals court, but questions about how long into the future the facility must provide protection for people against radiation leaks could delay the reality for a long time.
Utah activists fear the nuclear industry will bring its waste to Utah while lawyers and the Environmental Protection Agency argue over what regulations should govern Nevada's Yucca Mountain waste site.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Friday upheld the government's decision to single out Yucca Mountain as the site of a nuclear waste dump but ruled that the federal plan does not go far enough to protect people from potential radiation beyond 10,000 years into the future.
To comply with the court's ruling, the EPA must battle through appeals, permits, lawsuits and a lot of political red tape to put the court-ordered regulations in place.
The nuclear industry won't wait that long to find a place to stash their waste, said Jason Groenewold of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
"If the decision is upheld as announced today, then Utah is definitely going to be a prime target for the nuclear industry," Groenewold said.
The court's objection to the current radiation standard raised new questions as to whether the Yucca Mountain project will ever get off the ground.
Currently, the EPA requires that the government protect the public from radiation leaks for 10,000 years. Friday, the court threw out that standard, and ordered that protection extend beyond 10,000 years.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham assured reporters that he is confident the radiation exposure standard can be resolved and that the project will move forward.
Groenewold and other activists aren't quite as optimistic. He said the demise of Yucca Mountain could bring high-level nuclear waste to Utah.
"The nuclear industry is going to redouble its efforts to dump the waste in Tooele County's Skull Valley," Groenewold said. "They are going to look for all potential available options, and this is one of the few they have available now."
Skull Valley has long been proposed as a temporary nuclear waste facility until the Yucca Mountain waste site is completed. The Goshute Indians have negotiated with nuclear power companies to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on their Skull Valley reservation.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt and his successor, Gov. Olene Walker, have been adamantly opposed to a high-level nuclear-waste facility, includ- ing the proposed temporary storage site in Tooele County on Goshute tribal lands.
"We have always been against the idea that Skull Valley was going to in some way be a temporary waste site pending taking high-level nuclear waste to Yucca or anywhere else," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Steve Erickson of the Citizens Education Project said he wasn't so sure that Friday's decision would speed up the development of a nuclear waste facility in Utah. He said, however, that Utah will endure more political pressure by the nuclear industry, and "that's worrisome."
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