Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, July 15, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
July 15, 2004
Judges to hear state's complaint on nuclear documents
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A three-judge panel will hear Nevada's complaint that the Energy Department has not filed all of its backup documents with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a complaint that if upheld could delay the department's licensing request.
Nevada officials charge that the federal government has not properly "certified" its documents -- the backup information is supposed to be public six months before the license application.
Nevada officials argue that the law requires that the documents must be on an NRC Web site. The department says it satisfied the law by putting the documents on its own Web site while the NRC processes the documents.
If the judges side with Nevada, the database would not satisfy the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's requirements that begin the Yucca Mountain licensing process, said Joe Egan, a lawyer who represents Nevada on Yucca issues.
That could cause another delay in the department's plan to submit the project's license application to the commission in December, which could stall the entire project. Nevada already believes work on the application is in jeopardy because Friday's federal appeals court decision threw out the project's 10,000-year radiation compliance standard, leaving a hole in the commission's licensing rules.
The department intends to continue work on the application and supplement it later if the Environmental Protection Agency issues a new radiation standard, officials have said. It insists it will meet its December application deadline and still open the site by 2010.
The commission's Pre-License Application Board, a three-judge panel, announced Wednesday it will hear oral arguments on July 27 on Nevada's challenges.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 15, 2004
Nevada wants Yucca meetings public
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada wants to stop back room meetings between agencies on how to deal with a federal court ruling on the Yucca Mountain project.
On Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out an Environmental Protection Agency guideline that required the high-level nuclear waste dump to contain radiation for 10,000 years, noting that the National Academy of Sciences recommended a longer period.
Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects said the federal agencies involved -- the EPA, Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- may talk privately to each other on what to do next and he wants to make sure Nevada is not left out of any conversations.
"It would be highly improper for EPA and NRC to meeting privately with the one license applicant/entity (the Energy Department) to whom the rules would apply on determining its new performance standard," Loux wrote Commission Chairman Nils Diaz and EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt in a letter sent Wednesday. "DOE will have a full opportunity to help craft new EPA and NRC rules by participating in any new public rule-makings."
Loux said any discussions on the new standards should be kept public to "avoid suggestions that new rules specifying radiation standards have been trimmed to the fit the needs of the Energy Department."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 15, 2004
Yucca Mountain: Nevadans call for open talks on repository
DOE officials communicated privately with nuclear agency in wake of court ruling
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials on Wednesday demanded that federal executives conduct meetings in public if they want to discuss changes in the Yucca Mountain Project stemming from a court ruling last week.
State officials said they are troubled that the Energy Department communicated privately with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and possibly the Environmental Protection Agency, after a judicial appeals panel invalidated a radiation health standard for the proposed nuclear waste repository. The repository would be built about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Any discussions about what to do now should be held in the open, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"Nevada insists on participating in these meetings," Loux said in a letter sent to EPA head Michael Leavitt and top officials at the NRC.
Loux pointed to comments by Energy Deputy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow, who said Tuesday that DOE officials spoke this week with NRC counterparts about the court's decision and repository licensing.
Also, Yucca Mountain Director Margaret Chu said in an employee e-mail after the court opinion was released on Friday that DOE managers "are already consulting with the other appropriate agencies and we will be discussing options in the coming days."
Loux wrote that the regulatory agencies need to maintain their independence and avoid perceptions that new standards will be "trimmed to fit the needs of the Energy Department."
Responding to earlier Nevada complaints, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz has said a level of communication between his agency and DOE was necessary leading up to the filing of a repository license application, according to Loux.
At that point, the relationship becomes more formal.
An NRC spokeswoman this week confirmed the latest talks with the Energy Department but said the agency will have the final word whether to accept a Yucca license application for review.
An EPA spokesman could not be reached Wednesday evening.
Meanwhile Wednesday, a panel of administrative judges scheduled a July 27 hearing on the Energy Department's handling of an online document database that has drawn criticism since it was certified June 30.
The three officers appointed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued an order directing DOE officials to answer a series of questions, including what documents have been provided to the database and which ones have been left out and why.
Nevada officials filed a complaint seeking to have DOE's certification declared invalid, an action that would force delays in the program.
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New York Times
July 15, 2004
News Analysis
Ruling on Nuclear Site Leaves Next Move to Congress
By Matthew L. Wald
WASHINGTON, July 14 - Can the United States ever bury its nuclear waste? And does it still want to, or need to?
Even though an appeals court has found that the government's plan for a repository in the remote Nevada desert is inadequate because it provides protection for only 10,000 years, experts say the answer to the first question is yes, it can. But this will happen only if Congress feels strongly enough to change the rules, and say that it does not matter what happens to public safety more than 10,000 years down the road.
It is not clear that Congress wants to do that. At the moment, Congress cannot even muster the votes to keep financing the development of the repository, at Yucca Mountain, leading to the prospect that in October the Energy Department will have to lay off 70 percent of the 2,400 government and contract workers there.
"I cannot envision this Congress legislating on the disposal standard," said a Senate aide, who asked not to be named because he was involved in the discussions to end the budget impasse. Changing the standard, he predicted, would take years.
The court implied that an acceptable standard would have to last for several hundred thousand years, but even the 10,000-year standard is mind-boggling.
"In thinking about those issues, these times are so far out that they don't have any real meaning to anybody," said Paul Craig, a former member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Advisory Board, which was established by Congress to give advice about the repository.
"Even 10,000 years is like two Abrahams ago," Mr. Craig said, referring to the era of the biblical patriarch.
The problem for the Energy Department is that it has predicted that the waste will produce doses of radiation, in the case of the highest possible exposure, that will be 10 to 80 times higher than the rules allow. And even at 10,000 years, leak rates become unpredictable because rainwater, the main mechanism for spreading the contamination, is also unpredictable.
The ruling last week, by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, accepted Nevada's argument that the criteria by which Yucca should be licensed should be consistent with a 1995 report by the National Academy of Sciences, which said the period covered by the rules should include the period of peak risk.
But even the National Academy was ambivalent on this point. Perhaps, it said, the generation that got the benefit of nuclear power and weapons should provide the same protection to future generations that it would want provided for itself. Or perhaps not. "The principle of intergenerational equity is a matter for social judgment," the academy said.
"Social judgment" means that the scientists and engineers do not want to answer the question. Congress, however, may.
It has already spoken several times on this subject. In 1982, it decided that waste should be buried, and in 1987, it said waste should be buried at Yucca, one of three sites the Energy Department was then considering. There was no presumption that Yucca was best, only that it was a site on which everybody outside Nevada could agree, and was better than leaving the waste at reactor sites around the country.
Congress has made other decisions that substitute policy for science. It alone decides what high-level waste is. It is considering a bill that would redefine some waste as not being high level, so the waste could stay where it is, in old steel tanks in South Carolina, rather than being solidified for burial at Yucca.
Congress has shown no immediate enthusiasm for passing a law that would reverse the court ruling. "Has Congress ever taken up a major nuclear waste issue during an election year?" said Allison Macfarlane, a nuclear waste expert at M.I.T. "They're not even touching the energy bill."
Meanwhile, the waste is being moved into "dry casks," concrete and steel silos designed to last for decades. Earlier this year the owners of the Maine Yankee plant, in Wiscasset, Me., finished moving the fuel that had run the plant for its 28-year life into 60 such casks that are designed to last "indefinitely," said a spokesman, Eric T. Howes. "We're set up for the long haul," he said.
The casks cost about $90 million to build, and about $7 million a year to maintain, including security costs. This week, a court here began a trial that is supposed to last seven weeks to determine how much the Energy Department owes the owner of Maine Yankee and other defunct reactors, for breaking its contract to begin taking the fuel in 1998.
And in Utah, a private company hopes to win a license soon to build similar casks and store 40,000 tons of spent fuel (more than half the spent fuel that Yucca would hold) on an Indian reservation where it has leased 820 acres. Its casks are designed to last indefinitely, too, and will be needed whether or not Yucca opens, since many reactors are running out of space, say its sponsors.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 15, 2004
Ruling won´t delay Yucca, Energy Department says
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A top Energy Department official told Congress that the government´s plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada won´t be slowed by a court ruling on a radiation safety standard.
The department intends to pursue a waste repository license while scientists and designers adapt to new standards ordered by the court, deputy secretary Kyle McSlarrow told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.
Three U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges ruled Friday that the Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to set a 10,000-year radiation protection standard after a National Academy of Sciences study commissioned by Congress indicated the standard should be thousands of years longer.
In the Energy Department´s first detailed remarks since the ruling, McSlarrow said the Yucca Mountain project can continue “absolutely.’
The Energy Department´s No. 2 official said there was no reason the department could not file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year as planned, containing its safety projections for 10,000 years.
He said Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission conferred Monday, “and they don´t see a reason why we can´t either.’
NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner confirmed talks between the agencies but could not confirm details.
With an NRC license review scheduled to take three or four years, McSlarrow told senators the Energy Department believes it could supplement its application with new performance data if the EPA issues a new radiation standard.
Some senators said there was a possibility that Congress could pass a law reversing the court and keeping the 10,000-year standard.
Yucca opponents who declared victory when the court issued its ruling scoffed at the department´s attempt to rebound.
“My comment is, good luck. I don´t think this is going to fly in anyone´s book,’ said Bob Loux, chief of Nevada´s state Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Loux said it would be difficult for EPA to issue a new radiation standard in three or four years and said Energy Department efforts probably would end up back in court.
The Energy Department wants to open the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas in 2010.
Yucca opponents “will make hay with what they got’ from the court, McSlarrow told the senators. But he called the ruling overall “an enormous victory’ for the government.
Judges rejected constitutional and procedural challenges by Nevada, environmental groups and the nuclear industry.
After the hearing, McSlarrow said the Energy Department has assurances that the Yucca program will get enough money this year to avoid layoffs.
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Las Vegas Mercury
July 15, 2004
Quick and Dirty: a notebook of news and politics
Yucca ruling yields lots of purple prose
When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week dealt a setback to the government's plan to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada's political leaders all had something to say about it. Soon after the ruling, e-mails and faxes started pouring into area news media offices.
The boxing metaphors and hyperbolic assessments reached a fever pitch.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the decision a "huge victory" for Nevada and said it was a "significant blow" to the Department of Energy's project. Then he went a step further, predicting the ruling was "enough to effectively kill the project." A justifiable homicide, no doubt.
Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, called it an "important victory" for the state, declaring that "Nevadans can sleep more peacefully tonight, confident in the knowledge that there is recognition in our courts that the EPA deliberately rejected the sound advice of the scientific community and adopted a standard that runs contrary to the health, safety and well-being of the citizens of Nevada." Whew, glad to know that EPA-caused insomnia is over.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., called it a "historic victory" for Nevada. He said the court's ruling creates a "monumental obstacle" for the government to overcome in its quest for a Yucca Mountain repository. Call it the Stratosphere Tower of court verdicts.
Tom Gallagher, a Democratic congressional candidate, called it a "victorious battle" in the war against Yucca Mountain and a "serious blow" to the project. "I will fight every day to make sure Yucca proponents never recover from that blow," he promised, no doubt taking the weekend off from DOE pummeling.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the ruling was a "sound victory" for Nevada and that Yucca Mountain "is stopped in its tracks." He added that the decision was a "fatal blow" to the repository. Sandoval concluded with a reference to the Founding Fathers, who, he suggested, were opposed to nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain even though in their day no white man had yet set foot in what later came to be known as Nevada and nuclear energy, not to mention nuclear waste, had yet to be invented.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign was not about to be left out of the excitement generated in this crucial swing state, issuing a statement bashing the Bush administration for turning its back on "sound science in its rush to build the Yucca Mountain repository." Kerry-Edwards promised to "protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump." A bold vision, one that John Edwards adopted only last week after years of support for Yucca Mountain. Oh well, he's only the vice president, right?
The environmental group Public Citizen echoed the Nevada line, calling the ruling a "major victory...for science over politics." It added that "given this ruling, the Yucca Mountain project should be finished."
Now we must return to the real world, where the energy president, George W. Bush, is still in the White House and those wily Republicans control both houses of Congress. Nevada may have scored a "major" or "huge" or "historic" victory, but the nuclear industry and its pawns in the legislative and executive branches are not going to just lay down for the count. Not while thousands of tons of nuclear waste are piling up at nuclear power plants across the country. Nevadans must know by now that the Yucca Mountain battle is never really over. The appeals court ruling certainly means another delay for the $9 billion project, which is great, but eternal vigilance is the rule.--Geoff Schumacher
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Las Vegas Mercury
July 15, 2004
The Week in Review
Saturday, July 10: Finally! A decisive, sorta victory-type thing for opponents of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump. Federal judges gave a thumbs-down to the government's proposed safety standard requiring the site to have to safely contain nuke goo for only 10,000 years, the Review-Journal reported Saturday. Hurray. Wait. Better yet, imagine former governor turned pro-Yucca dickweed sellout Robert List's head turning a grossly unnatural shade of vermillion, veins bulging in a doily of dawning panic as he surges awake nightly to realize what he's done to his good name, his people, his very soul. HURRAY!
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Las Vegas Mercury
July 15, 2004
Backstory: Nader and nadirs
By Michael Green
The past week offered several events with good and bad signs for Nevada:
• Ralph Nader supporters deposited signatures with the secretary of state's office in hopes of getting him on the November ballot. One of his big backers, it turns out, is Steve Wark, once Pat Robertson's local acolyte and now a top Republican consultant. At least Wark is honest about wanting to help his party, and he's hardly the first on either side to engage in such shenanigans.
When Howard Dean, famed for overheated and overrated screams, pointed out that many of his petitioners around the country are Republicans who oppose everything Nader has stood for, Nader called his comments "a desperate attempt to smear our campaign." No, Nader did that himself.
In 2000, Nader didn't affect the outcome here, but he did elsewhere. Despite that, he never deserved blame for the national result. Without him, Al Gore would have carried several other states and won the White House without Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris mounting a coup in Florida. And despite its success--he won, remember--Gore's campaign was a textbook example of how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But if Gore had won Nevada, where voters fell for George W. Bush's lies about nuclear waste (and everything else), Florida and the other states wouldn't have mattered.
If he makes the ballot, Nader won't be alone, here or elsewhere. Most third-party candidates run because they correctly believe the two parties don't stand for their views--Greens on several progressive causes, Libertarians on government power and related matters, George Wallace in 1968 because the other parties considered African-Americans human, Ross Perot in the 1990s on the lack of Martians in government.
But Perot's old party endorsed Nader. How can he affiliate with them if he claims intellectual and financial integrity? How can he think aligning with them and helping Bush contributes to his causes? Because he really is what Democrats accused him of being: a one-time consumer advocate and admirable public servant whose megalomania has destroyed his principles.
Since Nevada is a battleground state and independent voters could affect the result, Nader could matter. But Bush inspires such devotion or hatred that the winner is likely to have a large enough margin to leave no doubt, at least in Nevada. Now, as for Florida...
• When Nader loved the environment, he would have found Yucca Mountain horrifying. It remains popular with most politicians, especially Bush and other sound scientists, but Nevada just received two bits of good news.
A federal court ruled that the feds must do better than claim the nuclear waste they want to put there will be safe for 10,000 years. Obviously, the judges are optimists. But so are Nevada Republicans. Attorney General Brian Sandoval was quick to say the dump is dead. He should hope so. The decision gives the GOP the chance to say it all worked out in the end and hope voters don't notice Bush's lies--and that Sandoval and other Bush lackeys (Gov. Kenny Guinn, Rep. Jim Gibbons and Sen. John Ensign) went along.
Meanwhile, another good sign was Kerry's selection of John Edwards as running mate. Edwards had voted for the dump, but said he would defer to Kerry. Nevada Republicans pooh-poohed that, which prompts two key points. One, when Republicans change their mind about making Nevada the nation's nuclear graveyard, it's in favor of it. Two, contrary to Bush's White House, in a Kerry administration the vice president's views wouldn't matter more than the president's. And as his policies demonstrate, Bush will ignore the law when it suits his purposes. If he can claim the right to torture, why not the right to rid 49 states of nuclear waste?
When the Yucca decision came down last week, its meaning was unclear at first. Actually, Nevada lost on most of what it argued. But the court ultimately saw through the claims of scientific care and caution. That gives Democrats another point to argue against Bush, too.
• State Controller Kathy Augustine may be impeached if she doesn't resign for using state employees to campaign for her re-election in 2002. Of course, Augustine has a history. Not only did she accuse one-time state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown of refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but state Sens. Bill Raggio (still aiding Reno at Las Vegas' expense), Ray Rawson (probably about to lose to the more dubious Bob Beers) and Sue Lowden (long since defeated) went along.
Granting that Brown once attacked a fellow Democrat's views without bothering to talk to him to find out what they were, playing politics and encouraging corruption are different. But Augustine's problems beg a question about democracy: Why do we elect someone to oversee state debt collections and accounting? It's like electing university regents: Shouldn't they demonstrate some knowledge of higher education before they try to run it?
More to the point, Augustine had the support of Republican leaders who should have figured out that something was wrong--some of the same leaders who follow Bush with looks usually seen only in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Can Democrats make something of that corruption, especially when questioned about their own--like Wendell Williams, whom Jim Rogers recently succeeded as chancellor of Nevada's higher education system?
You know politics is strange when Williams and Augustine end up looking more principled than Ralph Nader. It almost makes the idea of four more years of Bush look less scary...nah.
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Free Internet Press
July 14, 2004
Bush Administration Defies Court's Nuke Order
Intellpuke
The Bush Administration will proceed with a plan to build a nuclear waste site in Nevada this year despite a court decision ordering it to prevent radiation leaks for more than 10,000 years, a senior Energy Department official said on Tuesday.
Critics of the project, including Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, say this recent federal court ruling could permanently derail a plan to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week rejected Nevada's attempt to block the plan to store 77,000 tons of waste on constitutional grounds. The court also said, however, the administration wrongly ignored a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure safety from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years. Read more.
Radioactive releases could peak in 300,000 years and the administration must assure safeguards on that scale, the court found, Reuters news agency reports.
Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants is piling up -- there are over 50,000 tons of it stored at over 100 interim locations in 39 states within 75 miles of 161 million people.
Even so, the Bush Administration said that it does not intend to slow down.
Intellpuke: "Ignoring the court's ruling is a prime example of the Bush Administration's arrogance. Under the U.S. Constitution it is not above the law, yet it behaves as if it is the only law. I wonder how many earthquakes have rattled Yucca Mountain in the past 10,000 years, let alone the past 300,000."
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Las Vegas SUN
July 14, 2004
DOE says court ruling won't slow Nevada nuclear dump plan
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A top Energy Department official told Congress that the government's plan to bury nuclear waste in Nevada won't be slowed by a court ruling on a radiation safety standard.
The department intends to pursue a waste repository license while scientists and designers adapt to new standards ordered by the court, deputy secretary Kyle McSlarrow told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday.
Three U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges ruled Friday that the Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to set a 10,000-year radiation protection standard after a National Academy of Sciences study commissioned by Congress indicated the standard should be thousands of years longer.
In the Energy Department's first detailed remarks since the ruling, McSlarrow said the Yucca Mountain project can continue "absolutely."
The Energy Department's No. 2 official said there was no reason the department could not file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of the year as planned, containing its safety projections for 10,000 years.
He said Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission conferred Monday, "and they don't see a reason why we can't either."
NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner on confirmed talks between the agencies, but could not confirm details.
With an NRC license review scheduled to take three or four years, McSlarrow told senators the Energy Department believes it could supplement its application with new performance data if the EPA issues a new radiation standard.
Some senators said there was a possibility that Congress could pass a law reversing the court and keeping the 10,000-year standard.
Yucca opponents who declared victory when the court issued its ruling scoffed at the department's attempt to rebound.
"My comment is, good luck. I don't think this is going to fly in anyone's book," said Bob Loux, chief of Nevada's state Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Loux said it would be difficult for EPA to issue a new radiation standard in three or four years, and said Energy Department efforts would probably end up back in court.
The Energy Department wants to open the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas in 2010. It plans to collect 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear reactor fuel and military and industrial waste from sites in 39 states and entomb it in tunnels 1,000 feet beneath the ground.
Yucca opponents "will make hay with what they got" from the court, McSlarrow told the senators. But he called the ruling overall "an enormous victory" for the government.
Judges rejected constitutional and procedural challenges by Nevada, environmental groups and the nuclear industry.
After the hearing, McSlarrow said the Energy Department has assurances that the Yucca program will get enough money this year to avoid layoffs.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had said as many as 1,700 workers might lose their jobs this summer because of a possible congressional funding shortfall.
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On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
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Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
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Las Vegas SUN
July 13, 2004
Columnist Jeff German: Yes, we can stop the nuke dump
Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.
We're just beginning to feel the fallout from last week's federal appeals court decision in the battle over Yucca Mountain.
The stakes in the presidential race have been raised, the Bush administration is re-examining its faulty safety standards, appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court are being considered and Congress may be asked to undermine the court's decision.
No one knows how it will all play out.
But the one thing we do know is that the process of sending the nation's high-level waste to Yucca Mountain by 2010 is going to be delayed, which is a victory for everyone in the trenches here.
We also know that, as long as we're willing to keep fighting, we have an opportunity to win this epic war.
If John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger who has pledged to kill the dump, is elected in November our chances of prevailing will be even greater.
So those who think Yucca Mountain is inevitable had better think again.
It isn't inevitable, and the court proved that with its decision. The court found that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the law when it ignored the scientific community and devised unsafe standards to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
The decision provided us with the best evidence yet that President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, who are beholden to the wealthy nuclear industry, are determined to send us the nation's radioactive waste without any regard for our well-being.
The court last week put the evildoers on notice to change their ways.
The truth, it turns out, has become our best weapon in this fight, which makes me wonder why some among us still think we should give up.
I understand why former Gov. Bob List, the spokesman for the naysayers, wants us to raise the white flag and seek benefits for Yucca Mountain.
List is a well-paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's Washington-based lobbying arm, which is pushing the multibillion-dollar project. His job is to spread disinformation and help the industry undermine Yucca Mountain opposition on the homefront.
Last week List's reaction to the ruling reminded me of the propaganda-driven Iraqi information officer who boasted that his country was winning the war with the United States as American troops closed in on Baghdad.
While Nevada leaders on Friday were hailing the court decision as a victory, List called it a "very broad and sweeping win for the Yucca Mountain program."
On Monday I gave the former Republican governor a chance to discuss the decision after he had a weekend to think about it. But true to his pocketbook, he said he was more convinced than ever that the dump is coming here.
"This is not a show-stopper," List said from France, where he is vacationing.
The court, he said, shot down the state's biggest legal argument -- that it was unconsitutional to single out Yucca Mountain.
But the minute the court concluded that sound science played no role in choosing Yucca Mountain, it gave us reason to keep fighting -- and to say shame on the Bob Lists of the world.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 14, 2004
Letter: Beware Edwards' flip-flop on nuke waste dump
I love reading all about Nevada's win in the courts over Yucca Mountain, and how bad a decision President Bush made in recommending it to Congress, or how he lied on the matter. This is what readers learn from Sun columnist Jeff German.
Then there is the love fest going on over John Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his running mate, and how, in the hands of Kerry and Edwards, Yucca Mountain will be defeated. This is what readers learn from Sun columnist Brian Greenspun.
I can't wait to see the obvious lack of protesters when Edwards shows up in Nevada to campaign, and then, in a very John Kerry flip-flop liberal way, tells us how he will vote against Yucca Mountain after he voted for Yucca Mountain as a senator.
Just remember, in the event of a tie in the U.S. Senate, the future of Yucca Mountain could be in the hands of the man who voted for it first.
Allen Scott
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 14, 2004
Despite ruling, DOE says Yucca work will continue
Scientists, designers will adapt to court's standards, official testifies to Congress
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Trying to rebound from a legal setback, a top Energy Department official told Congress on Tuesday that the government's bid to bury nuclear waste in Nevada won't be stopped by a court ruling on a health standard.
DOE intends to pursue a waste repository license while scientists and designers adapt to new standards ordered by the court, deputy secretary Kyle McSlarrow told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The Yucca Mountain Project can continue "absolutely," McSlarrow said as he outlined an emerging strategy in DOE's first substantial remarks after the court's ruling Friday.
A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to set a 10,000-year radiation protection standard when a National Academy of Sciences study commissioned by Congress indicated it should be thousands of years longer.
Despite the ruling, McSlarrow, the DOE's No. 2 official, said there was no reason the department could not follow through on its plan to file a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the end of the year containing its safety projections for 10,000 years.
He said DOE officials spoke with NRC counterparts on Monday, "and they don't see a reason why we can't either."
With an NRC license review scheduled to take three or four years, McSlarrow told senators, DOE believes it could supplement its application with new performance data if the EPA devises a new standard covering a different length of time.
There is also a possibility, some senators said, that Congress could pass a law in the meantime reversing the court and allowing the 10,000-year.
Yucca opponents who had declared victory when the court issued its ruling scoffed at the department's attempt to rebound.
"My comment is, good luck. I don't think this is going to fly in anyone's book," said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Loux said DOE officials "are presupposing they will be able to meet some EPA standard in the future." He also said it will be it would be difficult for EPA to issue a new radiation measure in three or four years.
Loux said the DOE's actions are more likely to land the department back in court.
DOE has targeted 2010 for a repository opening. There was no mention Tuesday how the changing landscape might affect that goal, which a number of experts believe is a long shot to begin with.
Among them, Ed McGaffigan, a member of the NRC, has predicted years of delay if DOE tried to amend its license application in the midst of an agency review.
NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner on Tuesday confirmed ongoing talks between the agencies although she could not confirm details.
"There have been and there will be several discussions on process issues growing out of the court decision," she said. "DOE is always free to make their best judgement and submit a license application to us, and at the time we will decide whether to docket it depending on the circumstances."
Yucca opponents "will make hay with what they got" from the court, McSlarrow told the senators, but the ruling overall was "an enormous victory" for the government. Judges cleared away most of the challenges filed by Nevada, environmental groups and the nuclear industry.
After the hearing, McSlarrow said DOE has won assurances that the Yucca program will be allocated enough money this year to avoid layoffs. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had said as many as 1,700 workers, most of them in Nevada, might receive job loss notices this summer because of a possible shortfall.
McSlarrow said employment is no longer a concern.
Energy Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a nuclear power advocate, said he might look favorably on the plan outlined by McSlarrow.
"If we can get the money, it would be a very good approach," Domenici said. Though the court's ruling was troublesome, he said, there is an immediate need for Congress to come up with about $500 million to keep the project afloat into the next fiscal year. DOE had requested $880 million but Congress so far has found only $131 million for the project.
Domenici said he is concerned the ruling could derail the growth of nuclear power as an energy source for U.S. consumers. He said most scientists believe it is unrealistic to model the repository's performance for hundreds of thousands of years, longer than there has been civilization on the planet.
"I hate to make it sound ominous, but something terribly wrong has been done here and we must fix it," he said of the court decision.
Domenici said he was contemplating legislation to overrule the court and allow the 10,000 year health standard to remain intact.
Anticipating such a move, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he put out word during a Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday that he would stand in the way of any Yucca Mountain bill.
"This does not surprise me," he said. "I would have predicted exactly what they are doing. But I don't think they can put something together."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the DOE's path will lead to a dead end. As Domenici noted during the hearing, scientists don't believe models can confidently project that far into the future, Reid said.
"The DOE has a right to file a license application but this application they are filing is worthless until they get this worked out," Reid said.
Reid said the continuing Yucca Mountain drama is why Nevadans should vote for John Kerry, who has promised to terminate the Nevada repository if elected president.
Sean Smith, a Kerry campaign spokesman in Nevada, said he needed to consult with higher ups before he could say specifically how Kerry would react to the prospect of a new health standards bill.
"With Harry Reid in the Senate, this is probably something that President Kerry is not going to have to worry about," Smith said, referring to Reid's history of attacking pro-Yucca bills.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 13, 2004
Rural areas unfazed by Yucca ruling
By Stephen Curran and Kirsten Searer
<searer@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
A federal appeals court decision last week that could set the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain back indefinitely went almost unnoticed in rural Nevada by some of those most affected by the ruling.
Henry Neth, chairman of the Nye County Commission, said Monday afternoon that he had not yet been briefed on the decision, which came after the court found that the federal Environmental Protection Agency's 10,000-year safety benchmark at Yucca Mountain was incorrect.
Neth and other rural Nevada leaders have touted the proposed 319-mile rail line to Yucca Mountain as a boon for cash-strapped local economies.
Further studies, he said, would only drain more money from state taxpayers.
"It (the appeals court decision) means nothing to Nye County," Neth said after being told of the ruling. "It just means more money to the taxpayers. The people of Nevada have spoken as far as I'm concerned. They're tired of spending money to fight this thing when it could be a boon to the state."
Lea Rasura-Alfano, coordinator for the Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program, refused to discuss the decision and referred calls to Lincoln County Commission Chairman Spencer Hafen. Several phone calls to Hafen were not returned Monday.
Work will continue on the project while appeals of the court decision are made, but the ruling gave Nevada officials who have been fighting the proposal to build the nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The anti-Yucca sentiment, which permeates throughout the state, isn't as strong in the counties where there will be impacts, in large part because of the potential economic impact of the project -- new jobs and federal money.
Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips, a long-time advocate for Yucca Mountain, called the state's efforts to stop the project "misguided."
"It's unfortunate we're spending the kind of money we are on what I think is a futile cause," he said.
Lincoln County Commissioner Tommy Rowe was out of town when the court handed down its decision -- considered a victory by state leaders -- and said he had not yet spoken other commissioners about the decision.
If built, the rail line would carve a path through Caliente and much of rural Lincoln County before reaching Yucca Mountain, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Nye County.
Rowe, while never a particularly outspoken proponent of the project, previously said the rail line is inevitable and that the county should focus on negotiating for benefits.
"Both sides (the state and the federal government) claim victory so I don't know if we're in the same spot as we were before," Rowe said of differing analysis of the court's decision. "If it does go through we should get our benefits."
Nevada leaders viewed the ruling as a victory for the state, as the decision effectively put the project on indefinite hold while scientists reassess safety concerns stemming from proposed nuclear waste dump. The federal government, however, claimed victory after the three-judge panel's decision to strike down Nevada's claim that the dump was unconstitutional.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 14, 2004
Letters for July 14
Don´t blame president for Yucca Mountain
Why does the liberal left place the blame for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository solely on President Bush?
The fact of the matter is the genesis of this project can be traced back to 1975, when President Ford decided to dispose of spent nuclear fuel rather than reprocessing it. In 1987, a Democrat-controlled Congress voted to focus exclusively on Yucca Mountain as the nation´s permanent storage facility.
During the last 20 years, multiple administrations both Democrat and Republican have had the opportunity to come up with a better solution for waste storage. Harry Reid has been representing Nevada at the federal level since 1982. Maybe he should shoulder some blame for not stopping this project years ago.
Yes, in 2002 the president recommended the site based on the Department of Energy assessment and Congress approved it, but to my knowledge no other alternatives were presented. I think he acted in the country´s best interest considering the possibility of an accident or terrorist attack on one of the current facilities that were never built for long-term containment or high-level security.
Blaming President Bush for 20 years of a single-option nuclear waste policy isn´t fair.
Mike Fleiner, Reno
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AlterNet
July 14, 2004
Yucca Mountain Project Radioactive To Nevadans
By J.R. Pegg
Environment News Service
The Bush administration is still hell-bent on burying much of the nation's nuclear waste beneath Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
The Bush administration will press forward with its plan to bury much of the nation's nuclear waste beneath Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a top Energy Department official told the Senate Energy Committee on Tuesday.
Opponents of the plan say a federal court ruling issued last week effectively derailed the project, but Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow hailed the court's decision as "an enormous victory."
The court found the federal government's 10,000-year federal safety requirement for the highly radioactive waste is illegal because it is inconsistent with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences.
But the court also rejected Nevada's constitutional challenge to the repository and McSlarrow said this overshadows the concern about the safety standard.
"Everything regarding site selection and standards was upheld except for one thing," he said.
The project is "still on track" and the administration will submit a license application for the site by the end of the year," McSlarrow told Senators.
The Yucca Mountain site was first identified as a possible location for storage of the nation's nuclear waste in 1987, but the project has been beset with criticism and skepticism.
The facility is the intended destination for a total of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from Defense Department sites and spent nuclear fuel from the 103 operating nuclear reactors across the United States.
The Deputy Energy Secretary said he expects the facility will open and begin receiving shipments of nuclear waste in 2010.
But even some supporters of the project do not share McSlarrow's optimism.
"This is an ominous situation," Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said of the court ruling.
The court did not specify how far out into the future the government must assure the safety of the site, but noted that the National Academy of Sciences report recommended a standard that would cover 300,000 years, when some project radioactive releases from the site to peak.
Critics of the project say this standard cannot be met and Domenici agrees.
He told colleagues it is impossible for scientists to determine the safety requirements for the site beyond 10,000 years.
"That is almost as far out as civilization has been in existence," Domenici said. "There was essentially nothing in the world 10,000 years ago that had to do with mankind."
A key concern for supporters is that the law that identified the Yucca Mountain site for the repository blocks consideration of any other site.
Sustained delay to or failure to proceed with the Yucca Mountain project would force state governments to deal with the waste.
And the nuclear waste problem is growing in scope and expense.
As of 2003, nuclear reactors in the United States had generated some 54,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and by the year 2035, the United States will have produced more than twice that amount.
Several court cases have ruled that the federal government is liable for the costs of storing the nuclear waste until the Yucca Mountain site is ready.
The industry says that total bill could be some $56 billion - the first of several cases that could determine that figure began this week.
States are in no position to oversee or regulate long-term waste storage, Domenici said, and this could cause some to begin to shut down nuclear power plants.
"It is terrifically important that we find a solution to this," said Domenici. "The entire nuclear power industry in the United States could stand or fall with this interpretation."
McSlarrow said the administration is still reviewing the court's ruling, but told the committee he could not see why the project could not proceed.
"It is unlikely that anything that might occur on a post 10,000-year standard would cause us to revise the 10,000 year standard," said McSlarrow, who noted that the ruling approved of the 10,000 year standard.
The court suggested two possible options for dealing with the 10,000 year compliance period: Either federal agencies could revise their regulations to extend the compliance period beyond 10,000 years, or Congress could intervene and pass legislation giving agencies permission to maintain the 10,000 year standard.
The ruling could also be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Changing the law fits the bill for Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who called the decision "a bump in the road."
"We will change the language so the judges can look at it again," said Craig, a Republican.
But changing the law would be far from easy - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is critical of the Yucca Mountain project, which is also opposed by both Nevada Senators.
Critics of the Yucca Mountain plan note that federal officials have raised an array of concerns about the project, including a finding that the manufactured storage containers in which the government plans to store nuclear waste at the facility will probably leak.
There are also funding concerns swirling around the project. In its latest budget request, the Bush administration proposed moving the majority of funding for the repository "off budget."
That funding proposal was "not well thought out," said Domenici, because the budget process does not permit the Bush request.
The problem is forcing the Congress to scramble to meet the $880 million funding request - the House budget only includes $131 million for Yucca Mountain.
McSlarrow acknowledged that funding below the administration's request could stall the project, but said "we are going to work with Congress to ensure we get the funding stream we need."
Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning criticized the administration for requesting cuts in funding for research projects designed to restart the nation's commercial nuclear power industry.
Although nuclear power produces some 20 percent of the nation's electricity, the industry has not ordered a new plant since 1973.
"If we do not expend more dollars on research and development of nuclear power, we are never, ever going to open another nuclear power plant," Bunning said. "If this country is going to have a new nuclear power plant, the federal government is going to have to subsidize it."
J.R. Pegg writes for Environment News Service.
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 14, 2004
Work on nuke waste project will continue
By Steve Tetreault
PVT Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A one-paragraph court order issued as Nevadans were celebrating a federal appeals court ruling on the Yucca Mountain Project could allow work to continue on the nuclear waste repository, according to some attorneys.
While Nevada officials were hailing Friday's ruling as a potentially fatal blow to the project, the three-judge panel ordered that its ruling against a key health regulation be withheld until seven days after the outcome of any appeal.
Attorneys and nuclear industry officials said this could delay the court's mandate for months or a year. A Nevada state official said delay, if any, would be much shorter.
In the view of some industry officials, the overlooked court order means a reprieve for the Energy Department. It could allow work to continue towards licensing a Nevada repository while Yucca supporters angle for a more favorable ruling on appeal, or a rescue by allies in Congress.
"Everything is the same, nothing is different," said Steve Kraft, a Nuclear Energy Institute director. "It's hard for us to imagine how this project does not keep going forward until the process keeps playing out."
Marta Adams, a Nevada deputy attorney general, examined the order on Monday and said it appeared the judges had issued a "holding action" on their ruling.
"That does mitigate the immediate vacating of the rule," Adams said. Parties to the lawsuit have 45 days to request a re-hearing, or to ask the court for an en banc review by all the judges in the circuit, attorneys said. Another option is for an appeal straight to the Supreme Court.
Adams said Nevada could file motions urging the judges to remove the hold on their ruling. She said any appeals by the government or the nuclear industry likely would be quickly dismissed.
"I don't think this has a whole lot of significance," Adams said. "Re-hearings are rarely granted."
Adams added attorneys are continuing to digest the 100-page outcome of the complex litigation heard by three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Joe Egan, the state's lead nuclear waste lawyer, said Yucca supporters who are projecting a quick rebound in the courts or in Congress were "wishful thinking."
"I don't think the court left them much to appeal. There is no basis for a stay here, none at all," Egan said. "I don't think the licensing proceeding can appropriately proceed but I don't doubt DOE's facility to try to do that."
Beyond the legal issues, Egan said he doubted there will be much appetite in Congress to overturn a court ruling that invalidates health and safety science behind the government's effort to bury nuclear waste at a site 50 miles north of Pahrump and 20 miles north of Amargosa Valley and east of Beatty.
The Yucca project also has problems away from the courthouse. The program is facing a budget crisis in Congress and challenges to its management of millions of pages of backup documents for an online database. Attorneys for the state on Monday filed a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have DOE's database certification declared invalid.
The court of appeals threw out a 10,000-year radiation standard for the repository, saying it was put in place in defiance of a National Academy of Sciences recommendation for a longer protective period.
The standard, which aimed to shield residents from harmful exposures to radioactive materials, was devised by the Environmental Protection Agency and incorporated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Neither agency has commented on the ruling.
But an attorney not involved in the lawsuits said his reading suggested DOE could continue its work while appeals are in progress.
"They can probably proceed under the current ground rules until the current ground rules are invalidated. If there are appeals that will keep the decision from going into effect," said the attorney, who spoke on the condition he not be identified because he is a party in other DOE litigation.
That was the same message that nuclear industry executives delivered Monday during a meeting on Capitol Hill with several lawmakers, staffers and Energy Department officials according to a Senate aide who received a report afterwards.
NEIL executive vice president Angelina Howard said the gathering was a get-together of the organization's executive board and Yucca Mountain was among several issues discussed.
Aides said Senate Energy Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., authorized the meeting although it was not clear if he attended. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, the chairman of the House energy and air quality subcommittee, attended parts of the meeting.
The Senate aide said the officials appeared less worried about the court ruling than about a Domenici proposal to increase industry fees to make up a shortfall in next year's Yucca Mountain budget.
Nevada claimed a victory when the circuit court judges invalidated the 10,000-year radiation standard. In another section, the judges confirmed the state would be allowed to contest a wide variety of environmental issues during repository licensing.
But in what is being described overall as a mixed ruling, the Energy Department noted the judges upheld most other segments of the project, and dismissed the state's contention that the selection of the Yucca site was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The Energy Department had been anticipating an unfavorable ruling on the radiation standard and already was at work forming a response, a top manager told Yucca Mountain employees in an email on Friday.
"We have been preparing to address this issue in the event that the court ruling upheld the challenge to the standard," said Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. "We are already consulting with the other appropriate agencies and we will be discussing options in the coming days."
Chu reported the court "ruled in our favor on all issues except one," and said the decision "is a reaffirmation of the very hard work done by all participants in the program."
DOE spokesman Allen Benson said he had no comment on the email. He said Yucca employees were continuing work toward completing a license application to be filed later this year.
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 14, 2004
Flight Plan
Amargosa airport upgrade approved
By Phillip Gomez
PVT
Three weeks ago came the report that Nye County was awarding the various towns within its jurisdiction substantial grants for downtown improvements, beautification and urban renewal projects.
At about the same time, the commissioners rejected the idea of taking over the vacated lease from the Bureau of Land Management for the old Jackass Aeropark in Amargosa Valley, saying the substantial costs of repairs and upgrades and doubtful Federal Aviation Administration approval made the project cost-prohibitive.
Now the idea for the aeropark - named for Jackass Flats, where wild jackasses once gathered to graze north of Lathrop Wells on the Nevada Test Site - has been revived, joined with Amargosa Valley's $175,000 allotment of county funding for downtown redevelopment.
The town board is looking to breathe new life into the project with the funding. It hopes to pair up the "gift horse" money with the timeworn Jackass aeropark to create something more viable than a sterile mule - the result almost always produced in breeding the two animals.
"We realize we have everything working against us," said Commissioner Joni Eastley, whose District II the aeropark is in. But the Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board wanted to use the "downtown" revitalization money to pursue and fix up its airport, she said.
"That was one of the original downtowns considered," Eastley said of the broad valley. "Amargosa Valley has a sense of vision for their area."
The idea is intriguing in that no one seems quite sure where downtown Amargosa Valley is. But the aeropark, if it becomes a going concern, may settle the question once and for all.
"Amargosa Valley has about five or six different places that could be called downtown," said Jan Cameron, chairwoman of the Amargosa Valley Advisory Board. According to Cameron, Lathrop's Well (the original name) is the commonly assumed town center, at the junction of Nevada 95 and Highway 373. Until recently this was the place on the official Nevada highway map (now known as Lathrop Wells).
But others also contend for the "metro" distinction. They are:
• On the 17-mile stretch of Highway 373, between Lathrop Wells and Death Valley Junction in the heart of the Amargosa Valley at the 6-to 8-mile marker, where the town's post office, a mom and pop grocery, a restaurant, a motel and some apartments are located.
• At the 4-mile marker on Amargosa Farm Road, where the cemetery, a town clinic, the library, a park and a school (but no businesses) are located. The current state highway map shows this spot as the town's location.
• At the main residential area five more miles west on Farm Road, where two churches, a mom and pop grocery, restaurants and other small businesses are to be found.
• At the 11-mile marker on Amargosa Farm Road off Highway 373.
Cameron said Amargosa Valley is the biggest community in Nye County, geographically speaking. In terms of population it ranks third, about 28,000 behind Pahrump and perhaps as many as 1,000 residents behind Tonopah.
The Jackass Aeropark has one hangar, a couple of trailers for the manager's residence and office and an estimated 6,500-to 7,000-foot runway that needs repair. The old hangar would have to be removed and possibly new ones built.
It is the only airport in Nye County capable of taking jets, Cameron said, although only prop planes have recently been using the airport. A 737 jumbo jet has on at least on occasion landed there, she said.
"We have a very active flying club here," she said. But high turnover of past airport managers has limited the viability of the aeropark in a region with several other small airports nearby.
Former Pahrump Town Board member Charlie Gronda spoke in favor of the airport at the commission meeting. "I think you could start a project like this without it costing the county a lot of money," he said.
The county estimates the costs at $220,000 to bring the aeropark up to FAA standards and to develop a master plan for the facility. Amargosa Valley's $175,000 would cover most of that amount. Cameron said that getting the minimum number of 10 planes the FAA requires to be hangared on-site would not present a problem. "I think we'll be able to meet the FAA criteria," she said.
"This is such a significant thing for the community to maintain, especially with Yucca Mountain coming in," she said. "I expect to see some further growth out there with businesses if Yucca Mountain proceeds."
The county's Amargosa Valley Science and Technology Park recently broke ground across from Lathrop Wells near the entrance to the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository for high-level nuclear waste. It is projected to provide offices for Department of Energy contractors and their subs.
Commissioner Eastley said the aeropark would be revisited at a future county commission meeting. She indicated that deciding on the size of the airport's footprint would be critical in the county's plans.
Commissioner Candice Trummell last week commented lightheartedly in the aeropark discussion, just after the brothel brouhaha. She said that if brothels continued in existence and the aeropark were revived, tourists wouldn't even mind potential "layovers" in the area.
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Newsday
July 14, 2004
New storage plan for nuclear waste is criticized
By Jim Fitzgerald
Associated Press Writer
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A coalition of organizations seeking the shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear power plants said Wednesday that a new plan for storing radioactive waste on the site creates "another bull's-eye on the Hudson River."
"They're just adding to the risk" of contamination from an accident or attack at the plants, said Kyle Rabin, a policy analyst for Riverkeeper, one of the organizations in the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. "They say they're doing what we're asking but they're not."
A spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, owner of the plants in Buchanan, defended the plan. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding a public meeting in Peekskill on Thursday night to discuss it.
Entergy plans to move some of the 12-foot-long rods of spent fuel that are now kept in pools and embed them in stainless steel and concrete containers. These "dry casks" would then be held on a concrete platform about the size of a football field.
Though opponents have said in the past that dry casks are safer than the pools, they pointed out at Wednesday's news conference that the casks at Indian Point would not replace the pools but supplement them, allowing Entergy to put more spent fuel into the pools, now crowded with over 1,400 tons of waste.
They also criticized the brand of cask being used, saying questions had been raised about its durability, and they criticized the absence of earthen berms that could protect the casks. They said that while the NRC describes the casking as a "temporary storage solution," a court decision on Friday raised doubts about when permanent storage _ inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada _ would be available.
They said the best way to minimize the risk of radiation from spent fuel was to close down the two reactors, thereby ending the production of spent fuel.
"There's no good way to deal with something that's so toxic for so long," said Marilyn Elie of the Westchester Citizens Awareness Network.
Entergy spokesman Jim Steets acknowledged that "The point is not to reduce the volume in the pools but to make room so we can add new fuel." But he said the casks "will provide safe and secure storage regardless of when Yucca Mountain can begin to receive spent fuel."
He defended the safety and reliability of dry cask storage, saying it "meets all the NRC requirements and addresses all the issues associated with safety and security, including those concerns raised post-9/11."
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The Guardian
July 14, 2004
Dumping on Yucca Mountain
Native Americans lose their land as our presidential hero revives old-time nuclear tensions with Moscow
AL Kennedy
So glad that our Tony has now slithered himself a plucky and important millimetre away from Bush - "I now feel I can only agree absolutely with 99% of what the lovely president thinks and does". Sturdy chap, our premier. But if he's looking to improve his personal popularity - we can hardly expect him to be acting out of conscience - he still has to deal with the difficulty that if Bush and Blair together are the Laurel and Hardy of demonic foreign policy, Bush and Blair apart are quite evil enough to provoke spontaneous vomiting in small children.
Now, like many British citizens, I'd rather not think about our ghastly leader, but Bush is rather harder to blot out. It's that whole terror thing. I've been waking up screaming since I was five, so I find I am slightly susceptible to terror. Not the $60bn-earmarked-for-next-year, civil-rights-dissolving, Orange Alert type of terror - I mean real terror.
And it's not as if the genuine terror of Bush is hard to notice. Within hours of coming into office, he'd started approving oil exploration in national parks, cutting support for disadvantaged children, raising the levels of arsenic in drinking water... Being an utter bastard with numbing consistency is his only speciality beyond mangling his native language and playing golf like an unhinged Muppet in times of crisis.
But Team Bush could never be happy just tormenting its own (non-millionaire) citizens - the misery must spread. So we in the rest of the world get to be alarmed by the whole sabotaging Kyoto thing, the murdering strangers for fun and profit thing and the screwing the Middle East in hopes of Armageddon thing. But what gets slightly less attention is the reviving the cold war arms race thing.
It seemed momentarily puzzling when the US withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty and started developing cuter, smaller types of "battlefield" nukes when there didn't seem to be a cold war any more. These things were of little or no help against mobile terror cells and the Pentagon had proved itself completely unable to protect even its own troops from the radiation produced by existing DU weapons. But, of course, all this lucrative US nuclear development was bound to alarm the Russians and therefore justify itself retrospectively. Hence, Mr Putin's obliging announcement that his scientists have developed a vigorous response to America's ballistic missile defence. The fact that BMD won't work as advertised is, of course, balanced by the fact that it gets nukes very close to Russia and is supposed to be pre-emptive not defensive. Don't worry if this doesn't make sense - it makes money, which is much more important.
And the new cold war is why US military nuclear facilities (which have been closed down as unsafe by the FBI in the past) are now immune from environmental legislation. Better yet, plans for the Nevada test site now include sexy, actual testing of nuclear weapons. Needless to say this is really pleasing everyone in Las Vegas, which is only 65 miles away, and everyone in Utah - soon to be renamed Downwind, the Malignantly Mutating State. Naturally, attempts to amend the relevant Defence Authorisation Act failed.
But the Bushies' joy doesn't end there, because the Nevada test site isn't even on United States land - it's on territory which belongs to the Western Shoshone nation and is protected by treaty (should you feel that treaties between the US and indigenous peoples are in any way binding). The Yucca Mountain site earmarked for America's nuclear waste depository is also on Western Shoshone land, as is the planned Federal Counterterrorism Facility. And what is probably the world's third largest gold-producing area.
Which is why Karl Rove and George W have both visited Nevada lately and why seizures of Shoshone livestock have already started. Despite formal opposition from 80% of the Shoshone population, Amnesty International and the National Congress of American Indians, Congress has just passed the Western Shoshone distribution bill - which distributes 15 cents on the acre for huge tracts of land in four states, whether the owners intended to sell or not.
So with one bill, the neo-cons can ensure cancer misery on an epidemic scale, mindlessly polluting mineral extraction, increased efficiency in the belligerent surveillance of an entire population, world war three and one in the eye for them pesky redskins. Recent Irish revelations suggest that George is in his jimjams by 5pm and now we know why. His days are full of such knee-trembling thrills that it's a miracle he ever gets up off his back.
Talking of miracles, Bush was recently quizzed about his special relationship with Jesus and carefully assured his questioner that it "doesn't make me a better person than you". His delivery didn't convince. When he can do whatever he wants, whatever the consequences, surely that makes him better than all of us.
· More on the Shoshone defence of their territory can be found at wsdp.org
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Reuters
July 13, 2004
Nevada Waste Site Plan to Proceed Despite Ruling
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration will proceed with a plan to build a nuclear waste site in Nevada this year despite a court decision ordering it to prevent radiation leaks for more than 10,000 years, a senior Energy Department official said on Tuesday.
Critics of the project, including Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, say this recent federal court ruling could permanently derail a plan to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The administration said, however, that it does not intend to slow down.
"We are still on track toward submitting a license application in December of this year, and opening the repository and beginning waste acceptance in 2010," Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow told a Senate Energy Committee hearing on nuclear energy.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last week rejected Nevada's attempt to block the plan to store 77,000 tons of waste on constitutional grounds.
However, the court also said the administration wrongly ignored a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure safety from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years.
Radioactive releases could peak in 300,000 years and the administration must assure safeguards on that scale, the court found.
Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, a long-time nuclear industry proponent, said assuring safety over that timeframe is "impossible," and that the industry will "stand or fall" on how the court's objection is addressed.
Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants is piling up -- there are over 50,000 tons of it stored at over 100 interim locations in 39 states within 75 miles of 161 million people.
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OneWorld
July 13, 2004
Court Orders EPA To Revise Safety Standard For Yucca Nuclear Repository
Environment News Service (ENS)
Court Rejects Yucca Mtn. 10,000 Year Radioactive Safety Limit
WASHINGTON, DC, July 12, 2004 (ENS) - Both sides are claiming victory after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down its ruling Friday on challenges to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The 10,000 year federal safety requirement for the highly radioactive waste is illegal, the court ruled, because it is inconsistent with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. But the court rejected Nevada's constitutional challenge to the repository.
The repository site, located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada on the edge of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, was approved by Congress and President George W. Bush in 2002.
Ruling in a group of consolidated cases, the appellate court rejected all but one of the legal challenges raised by the state of Nevada, including a constitutional challenge.
The state of Nevada and environmental groups brought lawsuits against the three agencies with responsibility for the site: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Department of Energy (DOE). They also challenged actions of the President and Energy Secretary leading to approval of the Yucca site.
The industry association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, argued that the Yucca Mountain project is scientifically sound and is needed for the safety and security of the nation.
The appeals panel ruled illegal the 10,000 year compliance period for ensuring that radiation would not escape from the repository. The judges said the 10,000 year period selected by the EPA violates the Energy Policy Act because it is not "based upon and consistent with" the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences.
But the court supported the Nuclear Regulatory Commission´s licensing requirements and ruled that they "are neither unlawful nor arbitrary and capricious except to the extent that they incorporate EPA´s 10,000-year compliance period."
The appeals judges rejected Nevada's argument that the actions of the Energy Department and the President in selecting and approving Yucca Mountain were unconstitutional.
"The congressional resolution selecting the Yucca site for development represents an appropriate exercise of Congress´s Article IV, section 3 authority over federal property," the court decided.
"The Department of Energy´s and the President´s actions leading to the selection of the Yucca Mountain site are unreviewable," the judges said.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was "pleased" with the court's decisions, saying, "The Court dismissed all challenges to the site selection of Yucca Mountain. Our scientific basis for the Yucca Mountain Project is sound. The project will protect the public health and safety."
"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."
Still, Nevada Senator John Ensign, a Republican, claimed victory on behalf of Nevada's Congressional delegation, all of whom are opposed to Yucca Mountain, Democrats and Republicans alike. "Today´s court ruling provides Nevada a crucial legal tool to defeat the Yucca Mountain project once and for all," Ensign said at a press conference.
"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," Ensign said.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat, said the court's ruling dealt a death blow to the Yucca Mountain repository. "I´ve never believed Yucca Mountain would open, and today it could not be more clear that´s true. The court´s ruling is a significant blow to the Department of Energy and the Yucca Mountain project and I believe enough to effectively kill the project."
"There is a reason we have fought this project for more than two decades," said Reid. "It is impossible to open this kind of nuclear waste repository and still guarantee the health and safety of Nevadans."
The environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council said the court ruled in favor of environmental groups and the state of Nevada, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency illegally issued inadequate environmental and public health standards for Yucca Mountain.
"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, the NRDC attorney that argued the case for the environmental groups - Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Citizen Alert, Nevada Desert Experience, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Public Citizen.
"When dealing with a project of the magnitude of a nuclear waste repository," Fettus said, "the law requires that EPA do it right rather than rush it through."
But for the industry, Nuclear Energy Institute´s Executive Vice President Angie Howard also claimed victory. "Congress´ 2002 endorsement of the Yucca Mountain site and the Department of Energy´s work at the site are unaffected by this ruling," he said. "The court held that this important environmental protection program can go forward as planned. The one exception in the court ruling should not impede work at the repository."
"Work at the site and on the Energy Department´s upcoming license application for the repository, scheduled to be submitted to the NRC this December, should be allowed to continue under existing regulations," Howard said. "The reason is that the NRC is not scheduled to decide whether to issue a construction license for the state-of-the-art repository until 2007 or 2008."
The court suggested two possible options for dealing with the 10,000 year compliance period. First, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could revise their regulations to extend the compliance period beyond 10,000 years.
Second, the judges suggested that the EPA might ask Congress to intervene and pass legislation giving agencies permission to maintain the 10,000 year standard.
Saying that the court's validates the industry's belief that the overall decisionmaking process for Yucca Mountain project "rests on sound scientific ground," Howard said the repository is environmentally and economically beneficial to the country.
"Safe isolation of used nuclear fuel in a centralized location allows the nation to continue to rely on nuclear energy, which provides electricity to one of every five U.S. homes and businesses, as a vital part of a diverse energy portfolio at a time when there is tremendous turmoil and volatility with regard to other energy sources,’ Howard said.
But Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Republican, sees the appellate court's ruling as a vindication for the state. "This is an important victory for the State of Nevada and a major setback for the Department of Energy´s effort to place nuclear waste in our state," he said.
He said the decision reinforces what the state of Nevada has said all along, "that the science used by the Department of Energy is not sound nor is it safe, and that the 10,000 year standard used by the Environmental Protection Agency is woefully inadequate and is inconsistent with the Congressionally mandated recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences."
"I truly believe Nevadans can sleep more peacefully tonight, confident in the knowledge that there is recognition in our courts that the EPA deliberately rejected the sound advice of the scientific community and adopted a standard that runs contrary to the health, safety and well-being of the citizens of Nevada," the governor said.
The Yucca Mountain repository is the intended destination for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from Defense Department sites and spent nuclear fuel from the 103 operating nuclear reactors across the United States.
The federal government considers that the waste will be safer consolidated in one repository. With more than 100 interim storage locations sprinkled across 39 states, over 161 million people reside within 75 miles of a nuclear waste storage facility.
Current plans call for the waste to be moved by road and rail from its current locations to Yucca Mountain, a process that could take as long as 18 years.
But many panels, including the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board as well as the National Academy of Sciences, have expressed doubts about the safety of the waste once it is entombed in Yucca Mountain.
In its ruling, the court acknowledged, "Radioactive waste and its harmful consequences persist for time spans seemingly beyond human comprehension. 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," the court wrote.
As of 2003, nuclear reactors in the United States had generated approximately 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. By the year 2035, the United States will have produced 105,000 metric tons of nuclear waste – approximately twice the current amount.
The court's ruling could set the Yucca Mountain project back for an indefinite period of time while federal agencies go back to Congress, pursue new legal appeals, possibly to the Supreme Court, or change their rules to satisfy the court.
The Energy Department plans to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct and operate Yucca Mountain. Approximately 1.2 million documents totaling some 5.6 million pages related to the license application are searchable online at: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov, and will be available through the NRC's website at: http://www.lsnnet.gov.
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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