Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 30, 2004
Nuclear lobbyists won't fight Yucca ruling
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Energy Institute has decided to drop its fight against a federal court ruling that has handicapped plans for a Nevada nuclear waste repository.
Attorneys for the trade association will not ask the Supreme Court to review a repository health standard that was thrown out on July 9 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a spokesman said Monday.
NEI spokesman Mitch Singer said the group's lawyers concluded chances were slim the Supreme Court justices would have agreed to hear the case.
The odds increased further, Singer said, when the U.S. Solicitor General's office announced in October the government had no interest in joining any appeal.
NEI attorneys "thought the odds would be pretty long, especially without the participation of the government," Singer said.
The NEI decision appeared to close the book on a suite of lawsuits that were filed in 2001 and 2002 challenging government decisions to proceed with nuclear waste burial at Yucca Mountain.
The state of Nevada and environmental organizations challenged actions by the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House to further the project. The Nuclear Energy Institute also filed a lawsuit against the EPA.
Ruling in July, a three-judge panel upheld many segments of the nuclear waste effort. But it threw the Yucca project into uncertainty by one decision voiding a 10,000-year radiation protection standard for the site.
The judges said EPA did not follow a National Academy of Sciences recommendation that radiation protections should be in place for thousands of years longer.
EPA officials have said they plan to develop new radiation standards to respond to the court's criticism.
However, EPA has not indicated how long it could take to write new rules and formalize them through a public review process. Some experts have said that could take several years at least, potentially keeping the Yucca program in limbo that long.
DOE officials announced last week they were postponing a year-end goal to complete a repository license application, in part because of uncertainty over the radiation standard.
Another option is for Congress to intervene and reinstate the radiation standards that were voided by the federal court, or set new standards itself.
Singer said NEI has not decided yet whether to lobby Congress to reinstate the 10,000-year standard.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 30, 2004
DOE: Tunnel supports not a priority for Yucca
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain tunnel supports that prevent rock falls ultimately are not "important" to safely isolating nuclear waste, the Energy Department said.
The tunnel supports include rock bolts, wire mesh and steel sets that would help hold up tunnel walls and ceilings. The supports used to be on the Energy Department's Yucca "Q list," a catalog of project systems and materials that would be important to safely contain radiation in the proposed nuclear waste repository -- and therefore subject to quality assurance rules.
But the department removed the tunnel supports from the list as of July, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
An Oct. 27 memo written by two Yucca inspectors for the NRC confirmed that project managers had removed the tunnel supports from the Q list after the managers concluded the supports had been "inappropriately classified as important to safety or waste isolation."
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., a geologist. "I don't believe that anyone in their right mind would say that the rock bolts and the tunnel walls are not a QA issue. It's always a QA issue."
The Energy Department removed the tunnel supports from the Q list after an analysis concluded the tunnel supports would not officially be a part of the overall Yucca safety system designed to isolate highly radioactive waste from the environment for thousands of years, according to the NRC memo.
The department's models and research suggest that safety strategies such as high-tech alloy metal containers covered by titanium "drip shields" are more than enough to isolate waste.
The tunnel supports are an added measure of safety, but ultimately not a necessary one, according to the department.
"The tunnel support system isn't included in the Q list because the other engineered systems provide for radiological protection," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said.
The Energy Department is wrong about that, Gibbons said. Any tunnel collapse or fracture would create new "avenues of escape" for radiation, Gibbons said.
"It's like putting water in a fractured glass," he said.
Benson added that the tunnel supports are subject to an "augmented" quality assurance program "that addresses the same general areas as our nuclear safety QA program."
But Yucca critics believe the tunnel supports should be subject to the "nuclear safety" Q list. The supports would be vital to ultimately isolating radiation at Yucca and should be subject to the future repository's "QA" safety rules -- even if that means increased costs and trouble, critics said.
"Life gets easier when you don't have to do quality assurance on something," said Judy Treichel, executive director of Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force. "The DOE is always full of bad surprises."
From the Energy Department perspective, the tunnel supports are important for the construction phase of the repository, not the ultimate performance of it, said David Duquette, a member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which was created by Congress to be an independent Yucca watchdog.
That makes sense given that far into the future the tunnel supports likely will fail, which is why the department aims to prove that other safety systems like the drip shields and metal containers will not fail, said Duquette, a metals and alloys expert and professor of materials science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Duquette said the review board has not yet fully examined the next logical question: How would rock falls affect the drip shields? And ultimately, would possible drip shield failure lead to increased corrosion of the waste containers?
Duquette said he has not yet seen a full analysis of that question from the Energy Department.
"We do have some concerns about the drip shield itself," Duquette said.
The tunnel support issue is just one on a long list of challenges the state of Nevada plans to make to the Energy Department's application for a license to construct Yucca. Those challenges are part of a broader argument that the department can't construct a safe repository.
Failed supports could allow rock falls that over time could dent metal nuclear waste containers, Yucca critics said. Eventually that could create cracks or small pits on the container surfaces where corrosive moisture or dust could collect, they said.
"This is just another example of cutting corners to save money and accelerate the project," said lawyer Joe Egan, who is leading legal challenges against Yucca for the state of Nevada.
Significant rock falls also could complicate -- even prevent -- the retrieval of waste inside Yucca, Egan said.
Energy Department officials have said they intend to develop Yucca as a retrievable waste repository. Retrievals in the high-temperature tunnels likely would rely on robotic technology that would be hampered by rock falls.
Retrieving waste during an emergency failure of the repository is vital to the Energy Department's argument that Yucca is safe, critics said.
"I would say that is the ultimate safety matter," said Martin Malsch, a lawyer who works with Egan. "If something happens you want to be able to get the waste the hell out of there."
The "de-listing" of the tunnel supports comes as Yucca quality assurance programs have been under fire.
The NRC, which will be responsible for licensing and regulating Yucca, has been critical of quality assurance.
So has the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. In April the GAO reported that quality assurance problems could delay the project. Energy Department officials have said they made changes to improve quality assurance.
But the department may have a tough time convincing the NRC that basic tunnel supports should not be on the Q list, Nevada officials said.
"The DOE has been sloppy on QA for years, and they are still playing catch up, and they still can't get it right," said Steve Frishman, a technical consultant to the state of Nevada.
The NRC cannot comment yet on whether or not removing tunnel supports from the Q list raised any red flags among agency officials, NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said.
The NRC will review the matter when it reviews the Energy Department's license application, Gagner said.
The Energy Department had planned to submit the application -- a detailed, technical explanation of the entire Yucca safety system -- by year's end. But department officials last week said that submission will be delayed.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 30, 2004
Environmentalists See Trouble Ahead
By John Heilprin
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Environmentalists see some of their worst fears playing out as President Bush moves to cement a second-term agenda that includes getting more timber, oil and gas from public lands and relying on the market rather than regulation to curb pollution.
Bush's top energy priority - opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling - is shaping up as an early test of GOP gains in Congress.
"This is going to be a definitional battle, and we're ready," said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters.
Though the election didn't emphasize such issues, administration officials believe the results validated their belief that many environmental decisions are better made by the marketplace, landowners and state and local governments.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the administration will continue a "partnership with the oil and gas sector" but also will work with conservation organizations - as long as they are "willing to engage constructively on defining priorities and practices in domestic production."
Bush's environmental priority is to rewrite the Clean Air Act to set annual nationwide limits on three major air pollutants from power plants and to allow marketplace trading of pollution rights rather than regulation to meet those goals.
He does not plan to change his mind on his rejection of the Kyoto international climate treaty that would impose mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. "Kyoto's unworkable," Connaughton said.
Because of an environmental group's lawsuit, the EPA is preparing to issue first-ever regulations to cut mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants and new standards for cutting soot in the air and reducing power plant pollution that drifts between states.
Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, foresees more EPA water monitoring and preparations against chemical and biological attacks.
"I believe the mission that the president has given me in a second term, and the agenda and the philosophy that was validated by the election, was more progress, faster, being achieved in a way that will maintain economic competitiveness as a nation," he said.
Republicans in Congress plan to re-examine other landmark 1970s laws: the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, and the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources.
One area where environmentalists and the White House could find agreement is ocean issues. The administration is looking at setting catch quotas for individual fish species, new protections for fragile coral reefs and ecosystem-based management of rivers and streams, Connaughton said.
Some huge regional issues also will get attention. They include restoring the Florida Everglades, aiding the recovery of Pacific Northwest salmon, improving water quality in the Great Lakes and dealing with drought in the West and coastal erosion in Louisiana.
The administration put off until after the election a final decision on a plan to allow road building and logging on 58 million acres of remote forests where both are now banned.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton's agency is rewriting 162 plans for managing about one of every 10 acres in the United States. The decisions will affect whether wildlife protections or new oil and gas drilling projects are favored. Norton wants to give local governments more say.
Administration officials say they will more broadly apply the "healthy forests" law that Congress approved in his first term. It lets companies log large, commercially valuable trees in national forests in exchange for clearing smaller, more fire-prone trees and brush.
The administration wants forest managers to clear such trees and underbrush from up to 4 million acres at risk of fire, about 300,000 acres more than current efforts. It hopes to double that to 8 million acres within a decade, said Agriculture Department Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs forest policy.
Environmentalists still view the courts as their last resort.
The day after the election, the staff of law firm Earthjustice "gathered to face the news that the most anti-environmental administration will be back for four more years," Buck Parker, the firm's executive director wrote supporters. But, he added, "We're more determined than ever to carry on.
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On the Net:
White House environment policy: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/environment
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KLAS
November 29, 2004
A nuclear industry lobbying group won't seek Supreme Court review of a federal appeals court ruling that a crucial radiation protection standard for national nuclear waste repository in Nevada is insufficient.
The decision by the Nuclear Energy Institute leaves in place a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that could require the Energy Department to redesign the Yucca project to meet a much stricter Environmental Protection Agency radiation standard.
Congress could still push the project forward, by upholding the previous standard or by changing the standard.
Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said Monday that no decision had been made whether the Washington, D.C., industry lobbying group would ask Congress to rewrite the law governing a national nuclear dump.
The NEI decision, on the last day an appeal could be sought, came after the Bush administration said it would not ask the Supreme Court to take the case.
A Nevada official called the development an important victory in the state's fight against the federal plan to bury 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
State Attorney General Brian Sandoval said the Nuclear Energy Institute decision amounted to an acknowledgment that the July ruling by the District of Columbia court was "impervious to appeal."
The court threw out a 10,000-year radiation standard, saying the Environmental Protection Agency should have followed a National Academy of Sciences recommendation that the Yucca project limit radiation emissions for up to 300,000 years.
The appeals court has also rejected an institute request for rehearing, along with a request to keep the existing radiation standard in place pending Supreme Court review.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to rework the standard to meet the court's objection.
The Energy Department said last week it won't meet a self-imposed Dec. 31 deadline to submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The department wants to begin entombing spent nuclear fuel from reactors in 39 states at Yucca in 2010.
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Chemical & Engineering News -
November 29, 2004
Budget Bump
Federal science agencies get small gains in omnibus appropriations bill
David Hanson and Jeff Johnson
Congress completed action on the fiscal 2005 federal budget last week, passing a $388 billion omnibus spend- ing bill that combines nine appropriations bills. Total discretionary spending was held to the same levels as last year, but many science and technology agencies received modest increases in support.
The major exception is the National Science Foundation, which will get $5.5 billion this year, down about $107 million from 2004 and $277 million less than President George W. Bush requested. NSF research directorates will see decreases of 2%, and the agency's education programs will fall about 10% compared with last year. This is only the third time in more than 20 years that the NSF budget has decreased.
NIH will receive less than a 2% increase for fiscal 2005, to about $28.5 billion, although that is subject to some final adjustments. This increase is about the same as the agency received last year but is a major drop from the 15% increases it received every year between 1998 and 2003.
Spending at NASA will increase $522 million from last year, to $16 billion. The unexpected increase, pushed by the President and by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who represents workers from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, allows the agency to get the space shuttle back into space next year. Some cuts are expected in NASA's R&D programs.
Laboratory programs at the National Institute of Standards & Technology would also be increased, by about 10% to $379 million. NIST's much-maligned Advanced Technology Program for industrial cost-sharing grants will receive $136 million for 2005, a 24% cut, but that's better than elimination, as the Administration and House had proposed.
Overall, the Department of Energy will receive nearly $23 billion for fiscal 2005, some $300 million less than the President's request but almost $1 billion more than last year's appropriation. The Office of Science will get $3.6 billion, roughly $200 million more than requested and $100 million above last year's amount. All Science Office programs received an increase.
Areas of heated debate include DOE's appropriation for Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, which wound up matching last year's $557 million. Although the Administration had sought $880 million, the appropriation is an Administration victory of sorts because the House had threatened to provide only $131 million in light of disputes over the use of a consumer-paid waste trust fund.
Congress also blocked Administration efforts to explore a new generation of nuclear weapons by rejecting requests for $27.6 million for a "bunker buster" nuclear bomb, $9 million for research in advanced nuclear weapons, and $30 million to speed preparation for a possible resumption of nuclear weapons testing.
The EPA budget of $8.0 billion amounts to a $300 million cut from last year's spending level but a $250 million increase over the Administration's request. It marks the agency's first reduction in recent years. Most of the cuts ($250 million) came from a $1.35 billion federal program to aid state and local sewage treatment facilities.
The President has until Dec. 3 to sign the 2005 omnibus bill into law. Government agencies covered by the bill have been operating since Oct. 1 under continuing resolutions that provide funding at fiscal 2004 levels.
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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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