Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
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MSNBC
July 28, 2004
Nevada Attorneys, Department Of Energy Fight Over YuccaBy Tracie Potts
July 27 - By the end of this year, the Department of Energy wants the okay to start building an underground nuclear waste facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But first, it has to make millions of internal documents public, and that hasn't happened. As News 3's Tracie Potts reports, Nevada attorneys and the DOE hashed it out before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in Washington DC today.
It's a huge paper trail about what could become the nation's largest and most expensive nuclear waste site.Nevada layers claim the Department of Energy jumped the gun, making a million documents public, but keeping millions more under wraps.Reports, memos and e-mails that could address whether dumping high level nuclear waste here is safe.
Today the DOE admitted there are at least four million e-mails they don't even plan to review.It's information the public will never see."We think there's a lot of incriminating information about the safety of the repository, especially in the e-mails, many of which we have and others we have to get."
Half of the two million documents DOE turned over are labeled "privileged."That means the department acknowledges they exist, but won't make them public.Others are still waiting to be posted on a government web site.They're stuck in the pipeline because the system backed up after DOE recalled 25 thousand privileged documents that were published accidentally.
The three judge panel accused the Energy Department of dragging its feet."There's a whole lot you've done that needs explaining."But DOE lawyers say they've acted in good faith."The state is absolutely wrong to say we waited until two years ago to begin collecting these documents."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said today Nevada failed to prove DOE didn't act in good faith.But they don't have the last word.The judges do, and there's no word on when they'll reach a decision.Yucca Mountain is a political hot potato this election season.The National Democratic Party will approve a platform that includes a plank dedicated to stopping the Yucca Mountain project.Nevada is the only state mentioned by name in the party platform, a move Democrats hope will help John Kerry win the Silver State.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 28, 2004
Democratic plank to protect Nevada from Yucca dump
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
BOSTON -- The Democratic Party passed its platform Tuesday with a pledge to protect Nevada from the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a member of the platform committee, hailed the platform plank and said the staff of Sen. John Kerry, who will accept the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, insisted it be included.
"They ended up with stronger language than I wanted," she said. Kerry, who voted against Yucca Mountain when Congress approved it in 2002, has pledged to kill plans for the dump if he's elected. Just before the Democrats passed their platform, state Republicans condemned Kerry's support for several bills that helped move the Yucca Mountain project. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., told reporters that Kerry supported the 1987 "Screw Nevada" that singled out Yucca Mountain to be the only site the Energy Department studied to store nuclear waste.
"We have made the point that John Kerry can not be trusted on what he said," Ensign said. "I don't see a difference in George Bush or John Kerry as president on the Yucca Mountain issue. John Kerry can not be trusted on his word."
Ensign also noted seven other instances where Kerry voted on energy and water spending bills and other legislation related to the project opposite of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Yucca Mountain's fiercest opponent in Congress.
The Republicans are using the votes to deflect criticism of President Bush, who signed the order to make Yucca Mountain the nation's nuclear waste repository. Democrats are using Bush's support of the project in their campaign in Nevada, which is considered a battleground state.
Democrats called the Republican attacks "desperate," noting Kerry's 2002 vote. Reid said Kerry has been with Nevada every time he needed him.
"Nobody voted with us every time," Reid said. "They want to live in the past, but look to the future. He will be with us there is no question.
"You can bet on it, as we say in Nevada."
Kerry voted against the project in a key vote in July 2002 that allowed the project to move forward but Ensign said by voting for the 1987 bill, Kerry helped put the state in this situation in the first place. The nicknamed "Screw Nevada" bill is actually a provision inside a large budget bill passed 61-28 on Dec. 22, 1987. Reid along with four other Democrats and 23 Republicans voted against the bill, according to Ensign's office.
Ensign said the bill was a "mishmash of fixes for entitlement programs," but that Reid voted against it because it contained the Yucca Mountain language.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said while he was a city councilman fighting the Yucca Mountain project "it's now obvious where John Kerry was."
He said that similar to his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry's recent remark to a reporter on the campaign trail, Kerry "told Nevada to 'shove it' on Christmas Eve." He said the vote took Texas and Washington off the plate and pushed Nevada forward.
"I dare you to use this but President Bush used Bill Clinton's science to move the project forward," Porter said. "He used $8 billion worth of his environmental assessments. It's clear where Bush stands on this but it is not clear where Kerry stands."
Ensign said he may disagree with the project but he believes President Bush believes he followed through on his promise to base on the project on sound science.
"I don't believe (Kerry) can fulfill or will fulfill this promise," Ensign said. "If (Yucca Mountain) was not an issue in Nevada, George Bush would win Nevada by 10 points. John Kerry is way too liberal for Nevada."
But as news spread to the Democrats at the convention, Nevada's delegation lashed out at the Republicans.
"I see (Bush strategist) Karl Rove's fingerprints all over this," Reid said late Tuesday. "As usual the Republicans are doing two things, negative campaigning, they can't say anything good about anyone, and they are living in the past."
Reid said Bush is in trouble in states he thought he was winning so these new claims are just a way to divert attention. He plans to bring up the Yucca issue during his speech at the convention stage tonight.
Berkley walked onto the convention hall floor just after the party approved the platform and could not believe what the Republicans were alleging.
"I don't know what planet John Ensign has been on, but it's not planet earth," Berkley said. "We are trying to stop the deadliest substance known to man from being put 90 miles from where our children live, including John Ensign's children."
Four of Nevada's delegates sat in the hall while the platform was approved.
The Democrats platform contains the phase: "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.
Ensign dismissed platforms as "worthless" and said the language does not say it will stop the project just "protect Nevada."
"They can put more concrete and steel in to protect Nevada," Ensign said "The people building Yucca Mountain think they are protecting Nevada. It would have been easy to put (stopping the project) in there, but they left a lot of wiggle room."
But Berkley said "If I had his party platform, I'd be saying that too."
"This isn't just a stretch," Berkley said. "It's a rubber band festival on the part of the Republicans."
Reid, Berkley and several other delegates pointed to the state Republican party's platform which showed a desire to state negotiating for benefits by accepting the Yucca Mountain project. The plank was watered down to not specifically name the project but activities on federal land.
Sean Smith, Nevada's Communication Director for the Kerry campaign, said the candidate's position remains the same on Yucca: It will not happen.
"When you cherry pick through a 19-year voting record, you are going to find some things, but his commitment could not be stronger," Smith said. "They are trying to change the subject. They are misconstruing the facts on these bills."
The timing of the announcement was also suspicious.
"That should tell you the whole story right there," Smith said. "This is their getting desperate on the day we approve the strongest anti-Yucca platform in the history of American politics."
Kerry plans to visit the state again during the early part of August.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 28, 2004
Nevada can make a 'huge difference' in race
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
BOSTON -- Nevada should just officially change its slogan from Battle Born to Battleground.
The pleas to the state continued this morning to ensure the state goes to John Kerry in his bid for the White House.
Ed Sullivan, president of the Building and Construction Trade Department of the AFL-CIO, said the union will be sending "reinforcements to Nevada to make it a solid blue (Democrat) in November."
"Nevada can make a huge difference in November," Sullivan said.
The union aims to mobilize hundreds of volunteers for voter registration and voter turnout.
Meanwhile, a press conference scheduled for Thursday is set to talk about how the campaign expects to win the Western states.
NO NADER: Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York City, wants to makes sure states where Ralph Nader is trying to get on the ballot have the legal resources they need to stop him.
"If we do our work now, Ralph Nader won't be a problem," she said. "We need to stop Nader from stealing the election from the Democrats."
Nader, of course, was key in the 2000 election taking away votes that Democrats thought would go to the Democratic nominee and then-vice president, Al Gore.
Holtzman made sure to emphasize that she is not affiliated with the Kerry campaign.
CELEBRITY OF THE DAY: This morning, actor and director Rob Reiner made the rounds to the breakfasts of some swing-state delegations, reminding delegates what to tell voters about Kerry.
"Who do you want in the foxhole with you? Do you want someone that has seen live combat or someone that sat for seven minutes and read 'My Pet Goat,' " Reiner said, referring to a scene from Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" when President Bush learned of the terrorist attacks.
"You're assuming he read it," someone in the crowd said.
ALL WET: It is raining today, but no umbrellas can be brought into the Fleet Center under the strict security rules. Plastic rain ponchos are the rage, but area drugstores appear to be running out. Ponchos are, surprisingly, about the one thing that convention volunteers don't have to give out. But they have nearly everything else in their pockets, including brochures of where to eat. The delegates may be wet, but they'll be well fed.
WHO NEEDS SLEEP?: After a day full of political speeches and events, the big debate on the buses ferrying delegates from the convention to their hotels Fleet Center is: sleep or party? Most delegates start their day by 8 a.m. for breakfast with their state delegation. From there, it's seminars, speeches or events before the convention starts for the day. The convention floor speeches usually end around 11 p.m. or later with concerts, cocktail parties and parties following afterward.
Conversations on the bus rides focus on how much sleep is really needed as the delegates try to find a way to fit in another party or a chance to see a favorite celebrity or politician.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 28, 2004
Panel hears complaints about Yucca database
Nuclear repository documents unavailable, Nevada critics say
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Energy Department attorneys faced tough questioning Tuesday on DOE's handling of an electronic document database for the Yucca Mountain Project.
Three administrative judges challenged the department's work to gather millions of documents and make them available on the Internet in preparation for licensing hearings on the proposed nuclear waste repository.
The panel could force delays in DOE's licensing bid as it rules on a complaint from Nevada that the licensing support network is riddled with problems. The Energy Department says it plans to submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the end of the year.
The judges, gathered by the NRC, did not say how they would rule, but they pointedly quizzed DOE lawyers during a 4 1/2-hour hearing. A decision could come within weeks.
The Energy Department certified its licensing support network on June 30, saying at the time it was making available 1.2 million documents totalling 5.6 million pages.
But Nevada officials and other users immediately began complaining of missing documents and said they have had problems accessing what they believed should be available technical reports, studies and e-mails chronicling years of DOE's repository effort.
The Energy Department gave its best effort to construct the database and should not be penalized, said Michael Shebelskie, an attorney with the Hunton & Williams law firm handling DOE licensing.
"The facts will show, and do show, the DOE made a substantial good faith product that was proper and met the requirements," Shebelskie said.
DOE made its documents available on a department Web site while technicians at the NRC continued to index the material onto a central server.
But Joe Egan, an attorney representing Nevada, told hearing officers that problems with the database are widespread. Among other issues, the state contends the DOE Web site cannot be considered an official portal for the documents.
Egan charged the DOE rushed to certify the database before it was ready, a strategy to stay on schedule to meet the year-end application deadline.
Egan said up to 6 million documents, most of them valuable e-mails, are missing. Additionally, he challenged secrecy claimed for up to a million documents that made them unavailable to the public.
"What we have here is a system that is an utter, complete failure," Egan said.
He said if necessary Nevada would file thousands of requests for DOE to produce individual documents not available on the database, which could mire Yucca licensing.
Nevada's complaint appeared to resonate with the judges.
Administrative Judge Alan Rosenthal said the point of the database was to avoid prolonged fights and share documents among participants in Yucca license hearings before they commence.
"Under your system, there certainly are a lot of hiccups, if not worse, down the road," Rosenthal told Shebelskie. "There's a whole lot (DOE) has done that needs explaining."
Rosenthal also questioned why the Energy Department apparently waited until May to begin making documents available to be indexed onto the NRC server.
"DOE obviously foot-dragged," Rosenthal said.
That point was echoed by Judge Thomas Moore, who said, "DOE has had 15 years of advance notice that it had to do this."
Shebelskie said DOE officials believed it was premature to begin spending money on document roundups before Congress ratified the Yucca site in 2002. He also said NRC could not promise to secure documents until recently.
Shebelskie said e-mails that were not included were of marginal significance or were considered archive material not subject to posting.
Moore said, "I am having trouble with your argument in this sense: What is it about the word 'all' that I am missing?"
Egan said e-mails written by Lake Barrett, a senior project manager who retired in 2002, were not available for inspection, as well as messages from current program director Margaret Chu.
Egan said a search for documents on Alloy 22 corrosion, a key topic in repository performance, turned up hits for 9,261 documents, but 4,878 contained only a header code and no text that could be accessed.
A search for the word "party" showed subject lines for dozens of Yucca staff e-mails announcing bachelor parties, pool parties, Hollywood parties, with every one marked as a privileged document that restrict access, Egan said.
Explaining the confusion, Shebelskie said several hundred thousand documents that were flagged by software as containing information subject to security, copyright or privacy restrictions still were being reviewed by project workers.
"Don't you think the full validation should have been done before certification?" asked Alex Karlin, one of the judges.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
Democratic Convention: Nevada captures attention
Party platform vows to protect state from planned nuclear waste site
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
BOSTON -- The politics of Yucca Mountain arrived center stage at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday as delegates approved a national platform pledging to protect Nevada from the proposed nuclear waste repository.
But Republicans, refusing to cede any potential edge for their opponents on the state's most visible issue, released details of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's voting record on Yucca Mountain to suggest he is disingenuous.
The 37-page platform contains the only specific reference to a state issue and is fueling Democratic hope that Yucca Mountain will put Nevada into the John Kerry column and give him five electoral votes that could help decide a close national election.
"There is a bright-line difference between John Kerry's opposition to Yucca Mountain and President Bush's approval of the dump after promising to base a decision on sound science," said Dina Titus, Nevada's national Democratic committeewoman.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Kerry is a "flip-flopper" on the issue by pledging this year to block the repository despite support of the 1987 bill that singled out Nevada as the site and despite voting several other times against Nevada's senators on Yucca-related items.
"In 1987, John Kerry voted to screw Nevada," Ensign said. "It contradicts him completely."
Nevada's Democrats rallied behind Kerry and pointed to his vote in 2002 to sustain Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of final Yucca Mountain approval.
Kerry voted against attempts to store waste at Yucca Mountain on an interim basis before the repository was approved.
Ensign, a foe of the repository, supported interim storage when he was freshman in the House of Representatives in 1995.
Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and vice chairman of the Democratic National Convention's Platform Committee, said the 1987 vote is "totally irrelevant" to the current debate.
The 1987 bill, which passed 86-9, was an energy and appropriations package that included language singling out Yucca Mountain for study.
"President Bush authorized Yucca Mountain as the site to dump the most toxic substance known to man 90 miles away from my children's home and from John Ensign's children's home," Berkley said.
"I don't know where John Ensign has been for several years, but John Kerry has been right with us," Berkley said.
Berkley said the Kerry campaign pushed for inclusion of Yucca Mountain in the platform.
The Yucca reference is included in a two-page section on environmental policy that discusses global warming and what the party considers flawed Bush administration energy policies.
"We will protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain which has not been proved to be safe by sound science," the platform said.
Ensign said the platform does not matter to Nevada voters.
"I think platforms are worthless," Ensign said. "They don't mean anything to the person voting; they only mean something to the delegates.
"Voters have no idea what is in party platforms," he said. "That's a relic from the past that nobody pays attention to."
Democrats made similar points in referring to Ensign's criticism of Kerry's past votes relating to Yucca Mountain.
"Those others are largely procedural," said Sean Smith, Kerry's spokesman in Nevada. "We think this is just the Republicans trying to distract from the issue that Democrats have a clear advantage on because of the platform."
With the 1987 vote, Kerry voted against an amendment in 1988 that would have increased money for oversight of the project. In 1995, he voted against an amendment sought by Nevada's senators to divert $14.7 million of Yucca money.
In 1996, he voted in favor of radiation standards opposed by Nevada, and in 1996 and 1997, he voted against two amendments Nevada's senators had sought to stymie the project. Both dealt with the transportation of waste.
"He's been disingenuous," Congressman Jon Porter, R-Nev., said. "He started the project."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the criticism "another attempt by Republicans to muddy the issue."
Reid said, "Anytime we asked John Kerry to vote with us on Yucca Mountain, he was there for us."
Smith said the Massachusetts senator has made his position on Yucca Mountain clear with votes against interim and permanent storage.
"If Republicans weren't as worried about losing this state, this wouldn't have come out two hours before the platform was approved," Smith said.
Berkley called the timing "somewhat suspect." She said Republicans have no "high ground" on which to stand on the issue.
During the state Republican convention in Reno this year, delegates adopted a platform that pledged support for negotiating for benefits to recoup losses from harmful effects to federally managed lands. The platform was written specifically about Yucca Mountain, Republican delegates said, despite opposition from state GOP leaders.
"Maybe if they had boycotted the message that's in their party's state platform, they wouldn't be so concerned about ours," Berkley said.
Julie Whitacre was one of five Nevada delegates in their convention seats when the platform was adopted shortly after 4 p.m.
"I think platforms are very important," Whitacre said. "It's just like having a public official go ahead and vote the way you do. You're saying these are the issues and the ways you want them to vote."
Delegate Deborah Trudell of Las Vegas said Republicans are trying to "muddy the water" on Yucca Mountain and confuse voters.
"They're afraid of the enthusiasm for John Kerry that this convention is showing the country," she said. "I think we've got them scared."
National media are discussing the Yucca Mountain issue and which way Nevada will vote in November.
The National Journal's convention magazine spotlights issues in swing states and cites Yucca Mountain as the potentially defining item for voters.
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell spoke to Nevada delegates at breakfast Tuesday in the Lenox Hotel and mentioned Yucca Mountain as a key reason Nevadans should vote for Kerry.
In an interview, Cantwell said she thinks several Western states will make the difference for Kerry this fall.
"I think that New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Arizona are critical states," she said. "Nevada is just dead in the middle, a toss-up right now, and Yucca Mountain could decide it."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 28, 2004
Support for fighting repository grows slightly
Court ruling invalidating Yucca Mountain containment standards has little effect on opinions, poll finds
By Henry Brean
Review-Journal
State leaders called it a victory for Nevada and a significant blow to plans to bury the nation's most lethal nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
But appetite for the state's fight against the project increased only slightly in the wake of the July 9 federal court ruling that invalidated containment standards for the repository.
In a recent statewide poll, fifty-four percent said they wanted the battle to continue, while 39 percent of respondents said it is time for Nevada leaders to abandon their opposition and try to strike a deal with federal officials that will bring money or benefits to the state along with the repository.
Seven percent said they are not sure what should be done.
The poll, commissioned by the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com, is based on answers given July 20-22 by 625 registered voters from across the Nevada.
Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. conducted the poll, which carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Nevada residents were asked the same question in July 2002, immediately after the U.S. Senate upheld President Bush's approval of the repository.
At that time, 49 percent still wanted to fight and 43 percent said they were ready to strike a deal.
Former Nevada Gov. Bob List, now a paid consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute, said he was surprised by the latest poll results.
With the amount of media coverage the July 9 court ruling received, List expected more people to join the fight against Yucca Mountain, 100 miles of northwest of Las Vegas.
"I do believe that people still want to continue to press the state's position, but there is a growing appetite to start negotiating É a growing sense of inevitability," he said. "It doesn't mean you have to run up the white flag. It just means it's time to look at plan B."
But Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, thinks the results have more to do with how the question was posed.
"First of all, the premise of the question is flawed," Loux said. "(The repository) hasn't been approved" as the question states. "It's making the assumption that it's already a done deal."
That is why the federal court ruling seemed to have little if any effect on the poll results, Loux said.
With its July 9 decision, 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.
Brad Coker, managing director for Mason-Dixon, said last week's polling numbers seem to suggest that more and more Nevada residents have to come to view the repository as inevitable.
"Inevitability tends to soften opposition over time," Coker said.
But Loux and other opponents of the project insist the future of Yucca Mountain is as unsure as the outcome of the November election.
"When you have one of the two presidential candidates vowing to kill the project, and you have killing the project as part of the Democratic Party platform, it's hard for me to see how it's inevitable," Loux said.
A similar political slant showed through in last week's poll, with responses varying widely depending on the party affiliations of those who responded.
Seventy-three percent of Democrats favor continuing the fight, while 54 percent of Republicans said they want to see the state strike a deal.
Graphic:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jul-28-Wed-2004/photos/yuccapoll.jpg
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Las Vegas SUN
July 28, 2004
Kerry camp bringing out celebrities
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
BOSTON -- The Kerry campaign is bringing out celebrities, senators and strategists to make sure the Nevada delegation knows how important the state is to the election.
Actor John Cusack stopped by a Nevada delegation breakfast at the 2004 Democratic National Convention this morning saying the Kerry campaign "asked me to come by some of these swing states."
"You guys are in the vote-getting business," Cusack said, who spoke for about five minutes.
The campaign also sent its strategist Michael Whouley, who has worked with John Kerry for 22 years to remind the delegates of Kerry's leadership and the state's role in the election.
"Nevada is a big state for us," Whouley said with his Boston accent.
Whouley said some counts may show Kerry behind in important states but that "it wouldn't be a John Kerry campaign if we weren't behind."
"I believe in John Kerry as passionately as I believe in anything," Whouley said. "He's my friend."
Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell also spoke to the delegates this morning at the request of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to make sure to "put Nevada in the "D" column in November.
"It's truly the tossup of tossups," Cantwell said after her remarks.
Reid had a funeral to attend but will return to Boston later today, according to his staff.
Cantwell praised the senator for his dedication in fighting to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada. The Energy Department plans to store 77,000 tons of spent fuel at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas despite the state's strong opposition to the plan. Kerry has said he would stop the project.
Cantwell has nuclear waste problems of her own with million of gallon of high-level liquid waste stored in underground tanks at the Hanford site. She said Kerry spoke to her at the Red Sox game on Sunday that he wants to go over the issue with her.
She emphasized that a Kerry administration would have a better energy policy and "no one that's available to the highest bidder."
"If there is any place were we can't have the lights go out, it's Nevada," Cantwell said. She has relatives that live in Las Vegas.
In an separate, but surprisingly coincidental celebrity run-in, Richard Schiff, who plays Toby Ziegler, the communications director for a fictional Democratic U.S. president on the television show "The West Wing," sat down next to Las Vegas delegate Julie Whitacre in the Fleet Center Monday night.
She said he looked at her and said "you must be an important state to have these seats."
She laughed telling the story since she could not remember his real name but only as Toby from "The West Wing." She called a friend to say that "Toby" sat next to her, only to be reminded that he is a fictional character.
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KVVU
July 27, 2004
Kerry Coming Under Fire For Early Yucca Votes
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- State's Republicans are criticizing Senator John Kerry as being disingenuous about his voting record on Yucca Mountain.
Senator John Ensign is issuing a list of "pro-Yucca" votes that Kerry has taken since 1987.
They include the infamous "Screw Nevada" bill in which lawmakers rejected other sites and agreed to study only Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste dump.
The bill was part of a massive 17-point-six billion dollar budget package of taxes, benefit reductions and other savings.
Democrats are calling the Republican revelations a "red herring" and an attempt to muddy the waters.
A spokesman for the Kerry campaign in Nevada says Republicans are "grasping at straws."
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KRNV
July 28, 2004
Republicans say Kerry flip-flopped on Yucca position
State's Republicans are criticizing Senator John Kerry as being disingenuous about his voting record on Yucca Mountain.
Senator John Ensign is issuing a list of "pro-Yucca" votes that Kerry has taken since 1987. They include the infamous "Screw Nevada" bill in which lawmakers rejected other sites and agreed to study only Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste dump.
The bill was part of a massive 17.6 billion dollar budget package of taxes, benefit reductions and other savings.
Democrats are calling the Republican revelations a "red herring" and an attempt to muddy the waters.
A spokesman for the Kerry campaign in Nevada says Republicans are "grasping at straws."
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KVBC
July 27, 2004
Nevada Attorneys, Department Of Energy Fight Over Yucca
By the end of this year, the Department of Energy wants the okay to start building an underground nuclear waste facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But first, it has to make millions of internal documents public, and that hasn't happened. As News 3's Tracie Potts reports, Nevada attorneys and the DOE hashed it out before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in Washington DC today.
It's a huge paper trail about what could become the nation's largest and most expensive nuclear waste site. Nevada layers claim the Department of Energy jumped the gun, making a million documents public, but keeping millions more under wraps. Reports, memos and e-mails that could address whether dumping high level nuclear waste here is safe.
Today the DOE admitted there are at least four million e-mails they don't even plan to review. It's information the public will never see. "We think there's a lot of incriminating information about the safety of the repository, especially in the e-mails, many of which we have and others we have to get."
Half of the two million documents DOE turned over are labeled "privileged." That means the department acknowledges they exist, but won't make them public. Others are still waiting to be posted on a government web site. They're stuck in the pipeline because the system backed up after DOE recalled 25 thousand privileged documents that were published accidentally.
The three judge panel accused the Energy Department of dragging its feet. "There's a whole lot you've done that needs explaining." But DOE lawyers say they've acted in good faith. "The state is absolutely wrong to say we waited until two years ago to begin collecting these documents."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said today Nevada failed to prove DOE didn't act in good faith. But they don't have the last word. The judges do, and there's no word on when they'll reach a decision. Yucca Mountain is a political hot potato this election season. The National Democratic Party will approve a platform that includes a plank dedicated to stopping the Yucca Mountain project. Nevada is the only state mentioned by name in the party platform, a move Democrats hope will help John Kerry win the Silver State.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 28, 2004
Letter: Delay Yucca operation until solution is found
I read with pleasure that Nevada won one of the rulings concerning the dump. I am however not optimistic that it is the end. The present administration chooses to ignore the advice of renowned scientists and bend the rules and laws to suit themselves. If the levels of acceptable radiation to the public are too high they will find a way to lower the number.
Too much money from utilities is lining too many pockets for this to end yet. The best we can hope for is a long enough delay that a reasonable and safe solution can be found. Maybe the new pill to double our lifetimes will be out soon and all of us who have fought so hard against this will live to really see the end.
Sue Frishman
Yerington
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Southern Pines Pilot
July 28, 2004
Juggling Act: Norris Has Two Very Different Careers
By Mary Elle Hunter
Special to The Pilot
When one is introduced to Martez Norris, a personable and attractive recent addition to the Pinewild community, there is little indication that you are talking to a woman who simultaneously manages not one, but two, careers from the handsome home which she shares with her husband, Jim. She is the administrator of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, and she is also an accomplished interior designer.
Martez Norris first met and married her husband while she was living in Washington, D.C. At the time, she was using her education and background in business administration as a convention and meeting planner. When her husband´s business dictated a move to Minnesota, they built a house in the Minneapolis suburb of Apple Valley.
As they started to choose the basic elements for its construction, and then began to furnish it, she thought that with all the money they were spending on the project, it would be a good idea if she became familiar with interior planning.
So she took some courses and “I found that I loved the whole idea of designing a home,’ she says. “I particularly enjoy choosing exactly the right piece of furniture to fit in with the overall design scheme.’
Soon she had expanded her efforts and taken on a number of clients.
Then a friend of hers, who knew of her organizational skills, asked for some part-time help in putting together a group interested in overseeing the disposal of nuclear waste. Her friend was the commissioner of Minnesota´s public service department, and had gotten together with her counterparts in Michigan and Florida to form the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition. The fledgling association began with eleven members, and it has grown to 45 members from 25 states, made up of state agencies, attorneys general and utility representatives.
Martez Norris became absorbed with issues the group was working on, and became more and more involved.
“When the administrator resigned, and I was asked to take the position, I initially declined, because of my interior design clients,’ she says. “However, after consideration, I found that I could fit in the responsibilities of the organization and still have some time for interior design consulting.’
The objective of the coalition, as she explains it, is to oversee the moving and disposition of nuclear waste safely. The group is presently trying to work out a proposal to use Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the main disposal site for high level nuclear waste, preferring to see it concentrated in one spot, rather than in the present 38 different locations. The Nevada site is a large uninhabited federally-owned tract of land, which has been used primarily for military exercises. However, the state of Nevada, which is not a member of the coalition, is against the plan.
“It is a national problem,’ Norris points out. “For instance, a lot of people are unaware that we have one of the largest storage facilities in the United States right outside of the Triangle area.’
She goes on to say that debris from nuclear power plants have been shipped around the country for the past 35 years, and maintains that the dangers from spills of gasoline and chlorine are much greater, and much more harmful to the environment, due to the multiple rules and regulations for handling nuclear materials.
Conducting the business of the coalition from her home in Pinehurst, Norris keeps on top of pertinent proposed legislation, as well as recent Supreme Court decisions that impact the mission of the coalition. She is also a frequent visitor to Washington for meetings with other members of the group, as well as with federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Energy. The coalition doesn´t have any registered lobbyists, preferring to take a team approach to meeting with members of Congress. The three-person teams are usually made of representatives of state agencies and public utilities and the administrator.
Norris has come a long way from the country of her birth. She was born on the Mediterranean island of Malta, one of five children. Her father was a government servant, who took the family to live in England when she was 12 years old.
“I had always wanted to come to the United States, even as a child in Malta,’ she says. “Going to England was like a stepping stone which introduced me to living in another culture. As much as I loved living in England, I never really felt at home there.’
She met some Americans while residing in London. They came back year after year, their friendship grew, and she ended up organizing sightseeing trips for them to different, out-of-the-way places. Finally, they persuaded her to visit them in Washington, DC. Once she came, she never wanted to return to England.
Impressed with the American spirit, the friendliness and her acceptance by those she met, she tried to find employment with one of the embassies. She brazenly knocked on the door of the residence of the ambassador from Egypt, and, as luck would have it, she ended up as social secretary first to the wife of the ambassador, and afterward to the ambassador himself.
Later on, after she had applied for the necessary permission to remain in the United States, she began work as a convention and meeting planner, and met her husband. He had a military background, having served as a helicopter pilot and at the Pentagon, and when they were married, he was the Army liaison at the State Department. A career with Control Data Corporation and Northwest Airlines followed, and soon he became occupied working with foundering businesses and turning them around.
When time for retirement came, friends of the Norrises encouraged them to look at Pinehurst. However, they also considered the Gulf shores area in Jim´s native Alabama. Martez preferred to be closer to Washington and New York, so they settled on the Sandhills.
“I fell in love with Pinehurst,’ Norris says. “It reminded me of an English village, but with much better weather.’
They made the move from Minnesota just over a year ago. And now her vibrant personality, her knowledge and wide-ranging interests are making Martez Norris yet another shining example of one of the best parts of living in Pinehurst — its fascinating people!
Mary Elle Hunter is a Pinehurst freelance writer.
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Berkshire Eagle
July 28, 2004
Nuclear fuel rods may stay for years
By Claire M.L. Bourne
Berkshire Eagle Staff
NORTH ADAMS -- City councilors voiced some concern at last night's meeting over ongoing decommissioning procedures at the Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant.
"People are concerned," said Councilor William Donovan. "I have been asked several times where the decommissioning stands."
Site Closure Project Manager Joe Lynch was present to brief the council on recent progress made toward site closure, but said that spent fuel rods -- stored in 16 steel-reinforced concrete casks on the Yankee Rowe property since they were moved from a spent fuel pool in 2003 -- could be there for decades.
The storage containers are designed to last longer than 50 years, but Yankee Rowe has secured funding to manage them until 2020, said Kelly Smith, manager of communications for Yankee, who was also at the meeting.
Several councilors questioned the safety of the stored waste and the effect on residents' wallets.
"Yankee would like to see the fuel gone as much as the rest of you," Smith said.
Yucca Mountain plans
That can't happen, she said, until the U.S. Department of Energy's plans to turn Yucca Mountain, Nev., into a nuclear waste repository have been approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the facility has been built. Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry has spoken out against designating Yucca Mountain for this purpose, while President Bush has pushed the plan.
The DOE is responsible for removing the waste from Yankee Rowe, a process scheduled to begin in 1998. Yankee Rowe, along with Connecticut Yankee and Maine Yankee, has sued the DOE for $550 million for both its failure to remove the rods and to recoup the cost to upkeep the Rowe storage facility. Arguments in the case began in Washington earlier this month.
It costs Yankee Rowe $3 million to $5 million a year to maintain the storage facility -- money that comes from a decommissioning fee built into residents' electric bills, Smith said. "You're paying twice," she explained.
Both Smith and Lynch stressed that the 1,850-acre facility was safe from terrorist attack, one reason the cost of maintaining the storage site is so high. "I can assure you that this facility is protected 24/7, especially in light of 9/11," Smith said.
Councilor Gailanne M. Cariddi, who represents North Adams on the Yankee Rowe Community Advisory Board, organized the presentation. She said residents should have access to the information. The advisory board was established in 1998 to maintain open lines of communication between Yankee Rowe and surrounding communities.
During the second part of his presentation, Lynch summarized a recently completed environmental baseline report, detailing Yankee Rowe's efforts to assess its site and return problem areas to a safe, usable state.
Lynch pointed out that PCB paint chips had contaminated soil on certain parts of the property and that tritium had been detected in on-site ground water. He said he and his team were working to ensure that the affected areas are cleaned up.
The Yankee Rowe nuclear power facility closed in February 1992, after producing electricity for New England for more than 31 years. The plant began the decommissioning process in 1993, shipping much of its waste to a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility in Barnwell, S.C.
The facility is currently wrapping up decommissioning procedures, Lynch said.
Dismantling under way
Dismantling of the plant's buildings began last fall and is scheduled to be completed by mid-2005. The property, with the exception of the waste storage facility, should be ready for reuse in early 2006.
Yankee Rowe must heed a long list of stipulations -- issued by a handful of different regulatory bodies, including the NRC -- before it can officially shut its doors.
To meet the requirements, plant officials continue to study samples of soil, ground water, sediment and surface water. They are constantly monitoring the facility's well network and plan to begin dredging a portion of Sherman Reservoir in the fall. Removing a landfill on the property is also on the horizon. "Due diligence is what will measure our success," Lynch said.
Yankee Rowe was the first nuclear power station built in New England and the third in the United States. It is now one of 19 nuclear power plants nationwide undergoing decommissioning procedures.
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North Adams Transcript
July 28, 2004
Community passes over nuke meeting
By Susan Bush
North Adams Transcript
NORTH ADAMS -- Officials affiliated with the Yankee-Rowe nuclear energy facility played to an almost empty house Tuesday night, as not one community resident attended a public presentation about the Yankee decommissioning process.
The information session was included as part of the city council meeting. Two councilors, council president Michael Bloom and Councilor Richard Alcombright were absent from the meeting.
Councilor Clark H. Billings posed the first question to Yankee Site Closure Project Manager Joseph Lynch and Kelley Smith, Yankee communications manager.
"Why are we doing this?" Billings asked, and then questioned whether similar presentations were planned for communities including Florida, Savoy, and Williamstown.
Smith explained that the presentation, which focused on a baseline environmental report accomplished as part of the facility's termination process, was being offered at the invitation of Councilor Gailanne Cariddi, who also serves on the Yankee-Rowe Community Advisory Board.
While the environmental report was the planned topic, councilors seemed most concerned with the storage of spent fuel rods at the site.
Lynch acknowledged that 16 dry-storage casks currently holding spent nuclear fuel rods will remain at the site "until such time as the [federal] Department of Energy can transport them, by contract, to a repository."
"That's pretty much open-ended, isn't it?" Donovan asked.
Lynch stressed it is the DOE's obligation to remove the rods, but also emphasized the dry-storage area was built to last at least 50 years, and would need to be re-licensed in 20 years. Lynch said security and emergency procedures involving the casks are in place. Concrete covers dubbed "over-packs" are erected over stainless steel containers that hold the rods, Lynch and Smith explained.
And Smith said Yankee Atomic Electric Co. officials want the fuel rods moved.
"Yankee would like to see this fuel gone as much as everyone else," she said.
The fuel cannot be moved until a permanent nuclear waste storage site is erected, and currently, the only site on the drawing board is a planned facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Speaking after the presentation, Smith said Congress designated Yucca Mountain as a repository site last summer, and noted DOE has spent more than $7 billion studying the geology, hydrology, and seismology of Yucca. Smith said the arid environment is appropriate for nuclear waste storage and added the site water table is 2,000 feet below ground. Spent fuel would be stored 1,000 feet above the water table depth, Smith said.
Yankee Electric has sued the DOE for its failure to remove spent fuel rods from Yankee-Rowe and Yankee facilities in Maine and Connecticut. Arguments are under way in a Washington, D.C. federal court, and Smith said the total damages being sought are about $548 million -- $191 million in damages is the amount being requested for the Yankee-Rowe facility alone. The damages are being sought in part to help cover the costs of storing spent fuel on-site, Smith said. The cost of storing the spent rods at Yankee-Rowe are between $3 to $5 million a year, Smith said.
During the meeting, Smith told councilors "There is no place for the fuel to go right now."
Billings questioned the consumer cost of storing the fuel, and noted that under the current situation, electric utility customers were paying for a fuel-producing site that no longer produces fuel.
"The longer that stuff sits there, the longer we pay, right?" Billings asked.
The Yucca site was expected to open in 2010, but officials of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have said the DOE is expected to submit its application to build Yucca this summer and the application could take years to review. Meanwhile, several lawsuits opposing the repository have been filed, and Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry has spoken out against a nuclear waste storage site at Yucca. The Connecticut Yankee site is hosting 43 storage containers and the Maine site will contain about 64 spent fuel casks, Smith said.
"And there are 100 plants still operating," she said.
Environmental work is ongoing at the site, Lynch said. As the facility is dismantled, materials that are deemed "clean" are being taken to a New Hampshire location, while "contaminated" materials are sent to an Envirocare facility in Utah, Lynch said. Some fill is being reused on-site, Lynch said.
There are seven agencies involved in various aspects of the decommissioning and no process is without an overseeing entity, Lynch said. Among those agencies are the NRC, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Public Health, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Lynch said "wetlands are highly controlled by regulators," and "we are constantly protecting wetlands areas." This fall, dredging of the Sherman Dam will begin and Lynch said that controls, including silt fence, will be in place to protect aquatic life from PCB contamination. On-site landfills ultimately will be closed and Lynch said that Yankee officials are tracking tritium -- a radioactive substance, which was discovered in groundwater at and near the facility. Lynch said that a total of 16 wells -- four wells at four separate locations -- have been drilled and groundwater is being monitored.
Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen believed to be a cancer-causing agent, may have leaked from unlined concrete pools used during a "wet storage" of the spent fuel rods, Lynch said.
"It's something that we are tracking and if necessary, remediating," he said.
Lynch said land appraisals and site surveys are beginning in anticipation of the site being ready for re-use in 2006. Yankee-Rowe will have to maintain responsibility for the 10 acre dry-storage nuclear waste site until the spent fuel rods are removed from the property, but will be able to terminate its license and responsibility for the remainder of the approximately 2,200-acre site once license termination requirements are satisfied.
After the presentation, councilors said they were reassured by what they'd been told by Lynch and Smith.
"After listening to this presentation, I have every confidence that you guys have taken every precaution for safety," Councilor Ronald Boucher said.
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The Hill
July 28, 2004
A courtship that went bad
By Klaus Marre
President Bush and the powerful Teamsters union appeared close to forming an alliance in the first couple years of Bush´s term, but Teamsters head James Hoffa said the president was unwilling “to move to the center’ on worker-related issues.
“It takes two people to dance,’ Hoffa said. Though courted by the White House, in the end, the powerful union did not want to tango with a Bush administration that Hoffa calls “anti-worker.’
The Teamsters were chastised in some Democratic circles for working with the administration on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and storing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. Both would have created Teamsters jobs, said the union´s director of government affairs, Mike Mathis.
“We had hopes for them before [Bush] was elected,’ Hoffa told The Hill yesterday.
“But it didn´t work out.’ The Teamsters “tried to influence the administration to move to the center and to be more middle-of-the-road with regard to labor and working-family issues. Instead of that, they seemed to [engage in] a very anti-labor attack with regard to a number of initiatives,’ Hoffa said. “We just couldn´t go along with it anymore.’
He cited not extending unemployment benefits, changing overtime regulations, allowing “unsafe’ Mexican trucks into the country and pushing tax cuts for the rich as some of those initiatives but added that there are “over a dozen.’
President Bush last September declined to deliver a promised video greeting to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters´ 100th anniversary celebration, after Hoffa suggested the 1.5-million-member union would not be endorsing Bush´s reelection bid.
The Teamsters supported the first President Bush in 1988 and backed Republican Ronald Reagan in both 1980 and 1984. In 2000, they endorsed Vice President Al Gore but withheld their backing until the last minute.
Mathis said the Teamsters attempted to work with the White House on their priorities, adding that Bush had initiated a meeting with the union before the 2000 election. Then, Mathis said, Bush sought to convince the Teamsters that he would “prove himself to be a different president.’ Mathis also noted that the Teamsters worked well with Bush´s father when he occupied the White House.
He added that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Teamsters felt it was their duty to work with Bush. Back then, Mathis said, Bush “said all the right things.’
Instead, Bush has “actually helped to divide the country even more,’ Mathis argued.
Still, the Teamsters would work with the administration if it helped the union, he indicated. All along, Mathis said, it is “fair to say’ that the Teamsters´ supposed close ties with Bush were blown out of proportion.
A Bush-Cheney spokesperson could not be reached for comment by press time.
Hoffa sat in the presidential box at the 2002 State of the Union address but said,
“While it was nice to be there, that is not really what it is about.’
“We deal in substance, not photo-ops,’ Hoffa said. Mathis added that Hoffa has the best interest of the Teamsters in mind and not what is in it for him.
After working with the union on a couple issues, Mathis said, the White House was surprisingly “thin-skinned’ when the Teamsters would fight Bush on other issues. This was a big difference from Clinton, Mathis explained.
The Teamsters feel that Bush´s agenda is controlled by big business and “has turned its back on working families and the average American,’ Hoffa said. “He has got it all wrong.’
The top Teamster has not talked to Bush “in a long time’ and doesn´t talk to White House officials anymore.
When Kerry had the nomination wrapped up, Hoffa urged him to pick Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) as his running mate. The Teamsters backed Gephardt in this year´s Democratic presidential primary.
Hoffa said he was disappointed when Kerry passed over Gephardt. “I wish he would have’ picked him, Hoffa said, but he added that Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) is “a good choice.’
Mathis concurred, saying that Teamsters “really like’ Edwards and that his selection is “seen as a very positive thing.’
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Reno Gazette-Journal
July 27, 2004
Retired Nevada employees to gather Aug. 12
The Sparks Chapter of the Retired Public Employees of Nevada (RPEN) holds its breakfast meeting on the second Thursday of each month at Denny´s Restaurant, 205 E. Nugget Avenue at 8:30 a.m. Bob Loux, Director of Agency of Nuclear Projects, will speak about the Yucca Mountain Repository at the Aug. 12 meeting. All Nevada public employees and retirees are invited to attend. Call Dan Coppa at 626-0794 for further information.
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Tri-City Herald
July 27th, 2004
Vit plant accident possible, report says
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
Hanford's vitrification plant has a 50 percent chance of a chemical or radiological accident during its operating life, according to an Institute for Policy Studies paper to be published this fall. The paper contains a 3-year-old study by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But what may have been true three years ago when design was only 10 percent to 15 percent complete on the vitrification plant is not true now, said Department of Energy officials Monday.
They defended work at the $5.7 billion plant under construction at Hanford against the critical paper by Bob Alvarez -- an adviser to the Clinton administration -- and a Government Accountability Office report released earlier this month. Alvarez said the paper he authored has been accepted for publication in Science and Global Security, a peer-reviewed journal of Princeton University.
The vitrification plant would turn waste now in underground tanks into glasslike logs for permanent disposal. About 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste was left from the past production at Hanford of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Alvarez depended on NRC reports done three and more years ago when private operation of the plant was planned. DOE now plans to operate the plant and is responsible for safety issues with the oversight of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
"There have been three years of designing and analyzing (to remedy) modes of failure," said John Eschenberg, project manager for the vitrification plant for DOE's Office of River Protection. "We have been able to design preventive systems to prevent an accident from occurring."
When design work is completed, the plant will have no more than a one in a million chance of a major accident, he said.
Much of the risk that Alvarez found was with melting systems that will be used to turn waste into glasslike logs at the vitrification plant or large glass blocks in an alternate technology.
DOE already has had eight melter-related incidents, he said. They ranged from a plugged discharge line at a Savannah River, S.C., plant to a 1991 large-scale test of vitrification that ended in a steam explosion in a buried 6,000-gallon tank.
The design at the vitrification plant "eliminates all probability of a steam explosion," Eschenberg said.
But if DOE is wrong in its accident estimates, the danger could be significant, Alvarez believes.
"The accident consequences at Hanford's Waste Treatment Plant are comparable to those at a large nuclear reactor," he wrote.
Eschenberg countered that the potential accident mechanisms at the waste treatment, or vitrification, plant are not as complex as at a nuclear reactor nor is there as much radioactive material present at once.
In response to the GAO report critical of the management of Hanford's vitrification plant construction, DOE is questioning if the criticisms and suggested fixes have real world applications.
The GAO's "academic approach" could impair DOE's ability to start processing radioactive waste into glass logs by diverting resources into studies and analyses, according to a letter sent to DOE headquarters by Roy Schepens, manager of the Office of River Protection at Hanford. That could delay construction of the plant.
"In 2011 we can start pouring concrete or start pouring glass," Eschenberg said. "We could keep studying it and increase the confidence in every aspect of it, but we would be no closer getting it built."
The GAO has criticized DOE's fast track approach to building the vitrification plant.
To meet legal deadlines for building the plant and treating the waste, DOE is constructing the plant as design and permit work continue. Nearly two years after the first concrete was poured for the plant, the design is about 65 percent complete.
The GAO report found that for such a complex project, such an approach is "not compatible with controlling costs and schedules."
It is an uncommon approach with DOE, Schepens agreed in his letter.
"However, the design/build approach is considerably more common within private industry and has been proven successful for even large complex projects," he wrote. "This model is especially effective when the designer and builder is the same contractor, as is the case for (the vitrification plant)."
Although the GAO faulted DOE for its fast-track approach, it failed to offer any other way for DOE to meet its legal requirement to treat the tank waste by 2028, Schepens wrote.
The GAO report also criticized DOE's proposal to treat some of the tank waste with bulk vitrification, an alternate technology. It said the technology had not been tested fully on Hanford waste.
"We believe that the risks association with considering bulk vitrification as a supplemental technology are substantially less than suggested by GAO," Schepens wrote.
Laboratory tests have been conducted on Hanford tank waste and full-scale tests on a mock, nonradioactive waste, he wrote. Full-scale tests on radioactive waste should start soon.
DOE also disagreed with GAO's assessment that taxpayers could be saved $50 million in operating costs if DOE had not focused the technical design on a specific resin to be used in separating waste into high-level and low activity streams in the pretreatment building.
The resin, available from only one supplier, costs $10,000 per gallon and 1,800 gallons may be needed four times a year.
DOE is testing another resin that costs a tenth as much and is optimistic that it will finish qualification tests in time for the initial treatment runs at the vitrification plant, Schepens wrote.
In another section of the GAO report, the agency criticized DOE for not making plans for the delay of waste treatment that could result from a federal lawsuit that's on appeal. The suit challenges whether DOE can reclassify tank waste and dispose of some of it at Hanford rather than sending it to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
DOE said a pending environmental report will estimate treatment costs, including those associated with both winning and losing the lawsuit.
DOE blamed an $8 billion discrepancy between GAO and DOE estimates on how much money the fast-track approach would save on building and operating the plant to accounting differences. GAO had accused DOE of overestimating savings.
"Regardless, however, of which savings projection one chooses to accept -- $12 billion or $20 billion -- each one constitutes a significant savings to the American taxpayer," Schepens wrote.
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North Adams Transcript
July 27, 2004
City to hear nuclear plant report tonight
By Susan Bush
North Adams Transcript
NORTH ADAMS -- Officials affiliated with the on-going Yankee Rowe nuclear energy facility decommissioning are expected to offer a report involving a "baseline environmental report" about the site during tonight's city council meeting.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7:30 at city hall.
Councilor Gailanne Cariddi is the city's representative to the Yankee-Rowe Community Advisory Board. Officials of the state Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and the Yankee Atomic Electric Co. also have representatives on the advisory board.
Cariddi arranged for Yankee Site Closure Project Manager Joseph Lynch to speak about the report, as well as offer a general presentation about the decommissioning process. Earlier this year, Cariddi attended a similar presentation given in Greenfield and has said she believed that city residents should have access to the information.
A presentation outline states that a site description, a history of the facility operations and environmental management actions, radiological assessment and remediation, an oil and hazardous material assessment and remediation, information about solid waste impacts and site closure activities are part of the scheduled session.
The nuclear energy plant ceased producing nuclear power in 1992 and the decommissioning began in 1993.
Information posted on the Yankee Rowe Internet Web site states that the site is expected to be ready for re-use in 2006.
The nuclear facility currently is housing about 16 dry-storage casks containing radioactive spent fuel rods on about 10 acres of the 2,200-acre site.
During a June hearing in Buckland that focused on the facility's license termination, John Hickman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Yankee Rowe project manager, said that the facility will not be allowed to abdicate responsibility for the site until the rods are removed.
However, Hickman also said the property housing the rods could be separated from the remaining acreage, and in that event, Yankee officials would maintain responsibility only for the area containing the rods.
The spent fuel is expected to someday be taken to an planned nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
But the storage facility has not been approved or built yet, and officials with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in June that a NRC review of the facility application, being submitted by the federal Department of Energy, could take years to review and an anticipated project completion date of 2010 is a "best case scenario" and not likely to occur.
The proposed nuclear waste repository has generated strong opposition from numerous environmental groups and Nevada residents.
Over the weekend, Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry said on national television news programs that he opposes the Yucca Mountain proposal.
The DOE did contract with Yankee Rowe officials to remove the rods and store the spent fuel at Yucca Mountain, with the transport of the fuel rods expected to begin in 1998.
A lawsuit focusing on the failure to remove the rods was initiated by Yankee Rowe officials and arguments in the case began in a federal court earlier this month.
Also on the meeting agenda is a request to connect to the city water and sewer system that links to the Hoosac Water Quality District.
Erin and Dawn Booth are asking that a home they plan to build on Belmar Drive in Clarksburg be approved for the system. Mayor John Barrett III has offered a written recommendation that approval be granted, and noted that the final approval must come from water district commissioners. All conditions for connecting to the city system have been met, Barrett's recommendation states.
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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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