Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, December 1, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
December 01, 2004
Congress: Nevada counties can use federal funds overseeing Yucca
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Congress has sided with Nevada counties that want to spend federal money monitoring federal plans for a national nuclear waste repository, officials said.
A massive spending bill that lawmakers passed Nov. 20 clarified that local governments can use Energy Department grants to take part in upcoming licensing proceedings for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
"It provides the specific language that answers the questions that had come up over how we can use our oversight funds," said Abigail Johnson, a nuclear waste consultant to Eureka County.
In another development, Nevada's legal team plans to challenge an Energy Department decision not to subject plans for structural supports in repository tunnels to strict quality assurance control review.
"They are making an incorrect determination that the tunnel supports are not important to safety, and we don't believe that is the case," said Joe Egan, a McLean, Va., lawyer heading the state's legal challenges of the Yucca Mountain project.
Egan said the state will challenge the decision during Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearings on an Energy Department license for the repository.
Energy Department and Yucca Mountain spokesman Allen Benson said the tunnel supports will be built, but were left off the so-called Q list of safety features "because other engineered systems provide for radiological protection."
The department plans titanium drip shields over metal alloy waste canisters entombing highly radioactive spent fuel in underground tunnels at the repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The tunnel supports consist of rock bolts and steel beams holding up repository walls and ceilings.
The county funding issue arose after the Energy Department issued new grant guidelines in August. One directive said grant money to counties could not be used for activities such as loading research into an electronic database for Yucca Mountain licensing hearings.
County leaders protested that would restrict their ability to fully participate in the hearings, expected to begin next year before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A provision reversing the directive was inserted into the omnibus budget bill by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch opponent of the Yucca project.
Benson said the department welcomed the instructions from Congress.
Nine Nevada counties and Inyo County in California shared $4 million this year and are due to receive $8 million during fiscal 2005 to monitor Energy Department work at Yucca Mountain and study the planned repository's potential impacts on their residents.
Energy Department officials had said the August guidelines were based on a law that prohibits the counties from spending federal money on repository "litigation."
The Energy Department said recently it won't meet a self-imposed Dec. 31 deadline to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It hopes to open the Yucca Mountain repository by 2010.
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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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Las Vegas SUN
December 01, 2004
Congress OKs money for Yucca oversight
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The state of Nevada and eight counties in the state will be able to use federal money for Yucca Mountain oversight that the Energy Department sought to curb, according to new federal legislation.
Congress approved $2 million for the state of Nevada and $8 million for nine counties, including Inyo County in California, for Yucca watchdog activities as part of the $388 billion omnibus spending bill approved Nov. 20. That's up from the current fiscal year when the counties shared about $4 million.
Nevada and the counties, including Clark, typically receive money each year from Congress to track the federal plan to construct a national nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But this year the Energy Department signaled that it might limit some uses of the money.
Nevada officials specifically objected to what they said would be new limits on their ability to use oversight money to analyze a new database of Yucca documents and to research a proposed nuclear waste rail route in Nevada.
Clark County commissioners and Nevada lawmakers in Congress sought clarification from the department on how money could be used.
But Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has put the matter to rest, at least for this year. He inserted a provision into the spending bill that specifically earmarks the monies "to conduct scientific oversight responsibilities and participate in licensing activities." That language should cover the oversight work Nevada officials want to do, congressional sources said.
The Energy Department is seeking to finalize an application for a license to construct Yucca, and state officials are planning to challenge that application.
The bill language applies only to the current fiscal year and would have to be renewed -- along with a new appropriation -- next year.
Concerns have been eased -- for now -- that the state would not be able to use federal money to plan a number of challenges it intends to make to the license application, said said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Agency.
Nevada officials anticipate that the application will be flawed and will fail to make a case that Yucca would protect people and the environment, Loux said.
"We have an obligation to challenge it," Loux said.
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Las Vegas SUN
December 01, 2004
Editorial: Another safety gaffe at Yucca Mountain
The federal government has always had a cavalier attitude toward safely burying high-level nuclear waste. That's what led to the choice of Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada as the burial site. The government, for example, never cared that Yucca Mountain was in an earthquake zone. Now we're learning it doesn't believe the mountain's structural integrity is important.
All along, the supports for the tunnels that have been dug underneath the mountain have been viewed as critical. A tunnel collapse could trigger rock falls, which could perforate the drip shields and casks containing the deadly waste. But the status of the supports changed this past July, as confirmed by a memo reviewed by this newspaper. The memo was written in October by two inspectors for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It said the Energy Department and site construction managers concluded that the supports had been "inappropriately classified as important to safety or waste isolation." So they were removed as prime factors to be considered in deciding the safety of Yucca Mountain.
Earlier this year a federal court ruled that the Energy Department, for the past decade, had been building Yucca Mountain to the wrong radiation standard. It was building it to be safe for 10,000 years as opposed to several hundred thousand years. But without regarding the tunnel supports as important, it's logical to ask how the mountain could ever be regarded as safe even in our lifetimes.
If Yucca Mountain ever opens, it will be because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed it. We just hope they remember this memo when their decision is at hand.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 01, 2004
Congress resolves Yucca funding dispute
Counties can use DOE grants to take part in licensing for project
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A dispute over how Nevada counties can spend federal money on Yucca Mountain has been resolved by Congress in favor of the counties, officials said this week.
A year-end spending bill that lawmakers passed Nov. 20 makes clear that local governments can use Energy Department grants to take part in licensing for the proposed nuclear waste repository, they said.
Clark County commissioners protested after DOE issued new grant guidelines in August. One directive disallowed use of grant money for activities such as loading pertinent research into an electronic database being built for Yucca Mountain license hearings.
County leaders said the rules would restrict their ability to fully participate in upcoming hearings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A provision that reverses the directive was proposed by Clark County officials and was inserted into the bill by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., according to Capitol Hill officials.
Abigail Johnson, a nuclear waste consultant to Eureka County, said the problem appears to be solved for now.
"It provides the specific language that answers the questions that had come up over how we can use our oversight funds," she said.
Reid aides said the provision will need to be renewed each year.
Nine Nevada counties and Inyo County in California shared $4 million this year and are being given $8 million during fiscal 2005 to monitor DOE's work at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and to study the planned repository's potential impacts on their residents.
Clark County's allocation for 2005 is expected to be about $2 million.
Yucca Mountain hearings will be conducted in a triallike format before an NRC administrative panel.
DOE officials said their August guidelines were based on their reading of a law that prohibits the counties from spending federal money on repository "litigation."
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said DOE welcomed the instructions from Congress.
"Congress has for many years provided us guidance as well as the state and the (counties) on how the funds should be spent," Benson said. "Now we have congressional direction, which helps all of us."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 01, 2004
State finds change in repository's quality control
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Attorneys for the state of Nevada say they have found another weapon to deploy against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
State officials are focusing on an Energy Department decision this summer to delete structural supports for the repository's underground tunnels from a list of features requiring the strictest quality assurance controls.
The supports consist of rock bolts and steel beams that hold up repository walls and ceilings and add a layer of protection for canisters of highly radioactive spent fuel that would be stored within the tunnels.
DOE officials removed the tunnel supports from a "Q list" of Yucca systems that are considered important to prevent radiation from escaping the mountain and entering the environment.
Because they deal with deadly radiation, systems on the "Q list" also require the most stringent quality assurance rules, including pain-staking documentation and detailed reviews.
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said DOE "is obviously trying to minimize the number of areas that (quality assurance) has a role to play. I don't think they can fully comply with QA requirements, so they are trying to eliminate them."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Government Accountability Office have criticized the rigor of the Yucca Mountain quality assurance in reports this year, prompting DOE and contractor managers to increase their attention to that program.
Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman, said in an e-mail the tunnel supports are not on the Q list "because other engineered systems provide for radiological protection."
DOE plans to install titanium drip shields over waste canisters within the tunnels and to store the radioactive material in special alloy containers scientists believe will be corrosion-resistant.
Joe Egan, a Virginia attorney who leads a legal team challenging the Yucca Mountain Project for Nevada, charged DOE "is cutting corners one more time."
Egan said Nevada will file a formal contention on the tunnel supports during repository license hearings. "They are making an incorrect determination that the tunnel supports are not important to safety, and we don't believe that is the case," he said.
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KVBC
November 30, 2004
What's Next For Yucca Mountain
It appears theYucca Mountain project may be in dispute for several more years. This, after one group says it won't take their argument to the U.S. Supreme Court. News 3's Mitch Truswell explains what's changed and what's next.
There are some who think opponents of Yucca Mountain got an early holiday gift. The Nuclear Energy Institute, that's a lobbying group for the nuclear power industry, said it will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a lower court's decision. That puts the Department of Energy's plan to submit a license application next month to store nuclear waste in jeopardy. It also could jeopardize the plan to open the repository in 2010.
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year the 10,000 year safety standard, used by the Department of Energy in planning the Yucca Mountain project was not long enough to protect the public health. So, according to Nevada 's office for nuclear projects, which is fighting the Yucca project, there are two things that could happen now:
First, congress could re-write the law, claiming the 10,000 year standard is safe for the public. Some see that as a long shot and a risky, politically. It's more likely the Environmental Protection Agency will come up with a new safety standard for storing waste inside Yucca Mountain . Will it be safe for 50,000 years -- 300-thousand years?
Only when that question is answered can the application to store nuclear waste inside Yucca go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It's a slow process. The research, writing and public commenting on any new health standard could take up to 5 years -- or longer. The Nuclear Energy Institute decided not to appeal their case to the Supreme Court after realizing it was unlikely the court would agree to even hear the case.
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
December 01, 2004
Access linked to Diablo project
The Coastal Commission staff says Pacific Gas and Electric Co. should open to the public three miles
David Sneed
The Tribune
SAN LUIS OBISPO - The public could have significantly more access to land surrounding Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant within two years if the state Coastal Commission approves plans to build a storage facility for the plant's highly radioactive waste.
Commission staff is recommending that plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. be required to provide public access to three miles of coastline north of Diablo Canyon.
The commission will hold a hearing on the proposal when it meets Dec. 8 in San Francisco. PG&E officials declined to comment Tuesday, saying they would make their comments directly to the commission.
It is almost certain PG&E will oppose the new access requirements. The utility opposed similar conditions suggested by county planners and rejected a proposal to locate an underground neutrino research facility near the plant because of the additional public access it would entail.
"Clearly, we've had concerns about public access from a security and emergency planning perspective," said Jeff Lewis, plant spokesman.
PG&E needs the approval of the commission to build an above-ground storage facility behind the plant for used reactor fuel assemblies. The facility would consist of a thick concrete slab upon which as many as 138 steel-and-concrete storage casks would be mounted. Inside them would be placed the highly radioactive spent-fuel rods.
The San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace and other environmental groups appealed the county's approval of the project for a variety of safety reasons. Their main concern is that the dry-cask facility will become a de facto permanent nuclear waste dump because it is unknown if a national storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will ever be built.
Mothers for Peace spokeswoman Rochelle Becker said she is disappointed that the commission staff did not try to limit the amount of waste that could be stored at the site. Other states, including Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin, have successfully placed limits on the number of casks allowed, pending the establishment of the national storage facility in Nevada.
State law requires that additional coastal access be created to offset any loss of access caused by a development project. Commission staff is recommending these new requirements:
• Access to three miles of bluffs from Montaña de Oro State Park south to Crowbar Creek, including three overlooks.
• Access to at least one beach in the 3-mile area, most likely Point Buchon Beach near the state park's southern boundary.
• More frequent hikes on the Pecho Coast Trail on the southern portion of the Diablo Canyon lands. The utility currently provides two popular docent-led hikes per week, but the trail's management plan allows daily hikes.
Staff is also recommending that PG&E consider providing additional amenities that would enhance the increased public access. Examples of this include improvements to the historic Point San Luis Lighthouse, which is part of the Pecho Coast Trail, and trail extensions from Montaña de Oro.
If the commission adopts the plan, PG&E would have six months to prepare an access plan that would have to be approved by commission executive director Peter Douglas and two years to implement it, said Tom Luster, a commission staff analyst. The plan would contain details about how and what type of access the public would get.
For example, the staff recommendations do not require that people visiting the new access corridor be accompanied by a docent as they are on the Pecho Coast Trail. It would be up to PG&E to justify that sort of requirement, Luster said.
Coastal Commission planners say the new access should not pose a security risk. The proposed trail does not go near the 760-acre security area that surrounds the plant.
"We think this access requirement will work, but we would be willing to work with PG&E to address specific security concerns," Luster said.
The commission's approval of the storage facility is the final regulatory hurdle PG&E must overcome. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission already has approved the project.
Any access requirements or other conditions placed on the project by the commission would be final. A lawsuit would be the only way the commission's actions could be overturned, Luster said.
PG&E needs to build the storage facility because pools at the plant, where the fuel is currently stored, will be full in 2006. The utility has applied to the NRC for permission to install temporary storage racks in the pools that would create an additional two years of storage.
The temporary racks are an option if the Coastal Commission or lawsuits delay the dry-cask facility, Lewis said. If that project proceeds without delay, the temporary rack option would be dropped.
- David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail story ideas and comments to him at dsneed@thetribunenews.com.
Tri-City Herald
December 1, 2004
DOE likely to challenge Hanford waste initiative
By Annette Cary
Herald staff writer
The state of Washington on Tuesday declared Initiative 297 had officially passed, but whether it blocks shipments of radioactive waste to Hanford is yet to be seen.
The state expects the federal government to file suit today, challenging the legality of the initiative. It takes effect Thursday unless the court intervenes.
In addition, the federal government already has filed motions to halt rulings or agreements in federal court that now prevent it from sending certain types of waste to Hanford.
The initiative, passed by voters Nov. 2 in every county of the state except Benton and Franklin, would stop shipments of waste to Hanford until waste already there is cleaned up. Hanford is extensively contaminated from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
However, court proceedings already have temporarily stopped most waste from being sent to Hanford.
The court temporarily barred the Department of Energy from sending transuranic waste -- usually waste contaminated with plutonium -- to Hanford in May 2003.
When the state moved five months ago to prevent DOE from sending low-level radioactive waste and low-level waste mixed with hazardous chemicals to Hanford, DOE agreed to a temporarily halt of shipments.
Now the federal government is asking the court's permission to resume shipments of transuranic and low-level waste.
On Feb. 3, federal Judge Alan McDonald in Yakima will hear the state's arguments asking that the temporary ban on importing low-level waste to Hanford be expanded. He also will hear federal arguments asking that the ban be dropped.
Low-level waste includes debris such as radioactively contaminated rubble from old buildings used in nuclear processing.
Until the February court hearing and McDonald's decision, the ban on importing low-level waste to Hanford remains in effect.
"The court will endeavor to determine the motion as soon as possible following the hearing, but it must be kept in mind that the issues are weighty and complex," McDonald wrote in a court order Monday.
The state believes an environmental study released earlier this year by the federal government did not provide a full accounting of the basis for selecting Hanford as the disposal site for nuclear waste produced elsewhere in the nation.
After the study was completed, DOE issued a decision in June committing to sending no more than 82,000 cubic meters of low-level and low-level waste mixed with chemicals to Hanford. That's about a quarter of the amount of waste DOE needs to dispose of throughout its nationwide nuclear complex.
The state also believes the DOE environmental study did not do an adequate analysis of the risk posed by ground water contamination at Hanford.
DOE is arguing that its study was thorough and included a detailed discussion of ground water. Limits on waste shipments addressed state concerns, it said.
It has asked the court to consider the national interest in the comprehensive management of nuclear waste, not just the concerns of the state of Washington. Further delays in shipments will harm other DOE sites throughout the nation that face their own obligations to dispose of waste, according to DOE.
Under DOE's plan for nuclear waste from the weapons program, low-level waste would be sent to Hanford from other sites, but Hanford's high-level waste would be sent to Yucca Mountain, Nev., for disposal.
The federal government also believes that its environmental study should answer the court's concerns that led it to temporarily bar the shipment of transuranic waste to the site. The study included information on the impacts of storing transuranic waste at Hanford and transportation risks, according to the federal government.
The state has yet to file a response to that argument. But David Mears, the senior assistant attorney general for Washington, said the state does not believe all its concerns about transuranic waste shipments to Hanford have been addressed.
Among the state's concerns is that some of the transuranic waste would be stranded at Hanford after it is treated there. DOE intends to dispose of the transuranic waste in an underground repository near Carlsbad, N.M., but the state believes DOE has not received permission to send the waste there.
McDonald will consider arguments on the transuranic waste issue Jan. 11.
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Nevada Appeal
November 30, 2004
Lobbyists won't seek review of Yucca ruling
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - A nuclear industry lobbying group won't seek Supreme Court review of a crucial radiation protection standard for Yucca Mountain.
The Nuclear Energy Institute decision Monday removes the last legal challenge to a ruling that could require the Energy Department to redesign the Yucca Mountain 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 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 U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 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 .
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Nevada Appeal
November 26, 2004
OurView: Harry Reid makes a deal on Yucca
That's the Harry Reid we know and re-elect. Earlier this week, the senator from Nevada swung one of his deals — this time, to get Gregory Jaczko, his adviser on nuclear issues, a seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In return, Reid, who will be taking over as minority leader in the Senate, removed his hold on 175 of President Bush's nominees for various offices, from Amtrak to the Social Security Administration.
Jaczko, who has a master's degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and teaches at Georgetown University, has the qualifications to serve on the NRC. No question there. The opposition to his appointment, of course, centered on the controversy at Yucca Mountain, where the Energy Department wants to deposit the nation's nuclear waste.
Reid is the repository's biggest foe. Jaczko worked for Reid. Thus, Jaczko must be a plant at the NRC to kill Yucca Mountain.
That's not necessarily the way it will go — nor should it. The NRC and Jaczko need not be a political marriage. "He is a scientist first and has the background and experience necessary to evaluate information objectively," said Reid.
All we are really looking for in the NRC's evaluation of the Energy Department's application to store radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain is scientific objectivity.
It doesn't hurt to have Nevada's perspective going in, and a pipeline to the questions and criticism raised by the state's Nuclear Projects Office. But we're confident Yucca Mountain can't pass muster on legal and technical grounds.
Of course, Yucca Mountain has been about politics from the beginning. And if it takes political maneuvering to help level the playing field, then Reid has shown once again he's the right man for the job.
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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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