Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
July 19, 2005
Porter seeks more Yucca documents
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department will be subpoenaed to submit Yucca Mountain project documents, including the draft license application, to a House subcommittee's investigation into potential falsified research at the site.
This marks the second subpoena issued by House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., at the request of Rep. Jon Porter.
Porter, R-Nev., is chairman of House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization subcommittee, which is conducting the investigation. Porter's subcommittee covers all federal workforce issues, so the alleged employee fraud and project mismanagement falls under his jurisdiction.
"It's unfortunate the congressman has chosen this route," said department spokesman Craig Stevens. "All the information he has requested has been available to any member of his subcommittee or staff for three weeks. We feel we have been fully cooperative to the committee."
Eric Fygi, the department's acting general counsel, wrote in a letter sent to Porter on Monday that he does not understand how the draft license application falls under Porter's committee's jurisdiction.
"This sort of draft document is quite unrelated to those that chronicle activities of federal employees," he wrote.
The department had until 4 p.m. Monday to submit the draft and numerous other documents. Porter has been requesting them since April, but the department would only allow him or his staff to go to the department's headquarters building to view certain documents.
This was unacceptable to Davis and Porter.
"Based upon their track record, there is no doubt in my mind there would have been another excuse," Porter said. "I will use every tool I have available to me. I assume they are hiding something."
Porter wants hard copies of the draft license application and other scientific documents to see how science that was potentially compromised by government employees may have worked its way into final research on the project.
The department announced in March that it had discovered e-mails written by several U.S. Geological Survey employees that suggest they falsified work on water flow research, a critical safety component to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Through the subpoena, Porter also wants employment records and organizational charts to know who to interview next, who was in charge during what time periods and figure what was going on that employees felt they had to "fudge" information, as one of the e-mails said.
"I am very concerned for the employees. Many have told us they were not aware of the investigation until they read about it in the newspaper," Porter said. He wants to make sure no one was coerced into doing anything or not told information.
Porter already subpoenaed Geological Survey scientist Joe Hevesi, one of the e-mail authors, to testify at the June 29 hearing. Hevesi said under oath that he did not falsify any documents.
The department agrees Porter can see some of the documents, but does not understand why he needs physical copies, as opposed to viewing them at headquarters, Fygi wrote.
Fygi wrote that the department has to balance its responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and its responsibility to the committee. The act, the law that guides the Yucca project, protects some documents while requiring others to be made public.
Fygi wants to avoid "impairment" of the future Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings by giving documents to a congressional subcommittee "totally outside the legal protections afforded parties before the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act."
"It would be as though on the eve of complex civil litigation by the government, a congressional subcommittee demanded documents pertinent to the matter to be tried in court with a view to deciding by itself what documentary materials would be disclosed, instead of the decision being made by the court in accordance with traditional legal safeguards," Fygi wrote.
The department will eventually make many more documents public once it finalizes its document collection again, but Nuclear Regulatory Commission judges are still fine tuning what documents get what protection under the law.
Fights over Yucca documents have been ongoing since last year. The department said its document database required by law was complete, but Nevada attorneys challenged it and won. Now the department, Nevada and other parties are trying to get on the same page as to what documents need to go into the database and their format.
Nevada attorneys today were to appear again before a panel of the commission's Atomic Safety Licensing Board that specifically deals with Yucca issues before the department files its license application.
The panel is expected to issue criteria for the database soon, and the department want to finalize the collection by the end of the year at least.
Meanwhile, Nevada could get an answer soon in its own quest for the draft license application. Nuclear Regulatory Commission judges want additional and specific information from the department to support its arguments that it does not have to make the draft public.
Attorneys for the department and the state appeared before the board last week arguing over the draft. The judges sent a request Monday for specific timelines on who looked at the draft, how it was reviewed and other details.
Nevada wants the draft license application to see what final decision the department had prepared for the final version. Decisions on the repository's exact design, safety features and other issues would only be made in the application, so a draft would hold at least clues to where the department was going with the project.
If Porter gets the draft application, he said there are legal steps that would have to be satisfied before he could turn it over to the state.
"That would have to be determined at that time," Porter said.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 19, 2005
DOE: Trains destined for Yucca would only carry nuclear waste
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Trains moving nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain will carry only waste destined for the repository and no other freight, the Energy Department said Monday.
The department decided last year it would use its "mostly rail" transportation option, which includes building a 319-mile rail line through Lincoln County, but the department had been largely silent until now about details of its waste-shipping plans.
Using what it calls "dedicated train service," the department's train shipments will take only high-level radioactive waste from Energy Department sites and used fuel from commercial reactors.
Under the alternative plan, trains could have a spent fuel cask on one car and anything else shipped via train, from cars to cows to carrots, in another.
General freight trains could still be used, but the department will prefer the dedicated option to haul waste to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, according to Monday's announcement.
The department said in a document circulated to congressional offices and other stakeholders that dedicated trains will be safer due to strict regulations and less time in transit. The trains will be shorter, which will allow for better monitoring along the routes and less time idling in rail yards.
There is also a "significant cost savings" with dedicated trains, according to the department.
The Association of American Railroads has not taken a position on whether nuclear waste should be shipped to Yucca Mountain or if it should be shipped by rail.
"But if it is going to be shipped by rail, it should move in dedicated trains," said association spokesman Tom White.
White said railroads are required by law to move the waste if the government needs it moved. Nuclear waste has been moved by rail in the past and the industry knows how to do it, he said.
Nevada officials strongly oppose the proposed repository and do not want to see any shipments come to Nevada, but Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency of Nuclear Projects, said dedicated trains are the better option.
"DOE had been resistant to the idea," Loux said. "The bigger question is: Why are they announcing this now?"
The project still faces numerous legal, regulatory and financial problems that have plagued it since its inception two decades ago. It was supposed to open in 1998, then 2010 and now is not likely to open until 2012 at the earliest.
Bob Halstead, the state's transportation consultant, said that as far as Yucca Mountain transportation issues go, the dedicated train question was second only to the matter of whether full-scale testing would be done on the casks in which the waste is to be shipped.
"Dedicated trains are a no-brainer," Halstead said. "They should have made a big public announcement with bells and whistles and neon signs and fireworks that they were doing this."
Kevin Kamps, spokesman for Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an anti-Yucca group, likewise says that dedicated trains should be the only option. Mixing high-level waste with other freight would be a "disaster in the making," Kamps said.
But the Energy Department seems to be leaving itself the option of using mixed-cargo shipments by arguing that both dedicated and mixed shipments are safe, Kamps said. According to the policy statement, "DOE shipments have been and will continue to be made securely using both DTS and general freight service."
"They're trying to play both sides of the fence," Kamps said. "They're definitely leaving themselves an out for some reason.'
Halstead said this matter has always been a public relations problem for the department because the public seems to prefer dedicated trains but the department never took a position on it. If the department was solely going to use dedicated trains, it would have made a bigger deal out of it.
He suspects the timing of the announcement had to do with a National Academy of Sciences meeting this week by a panel studying nuclear waste transportation. The meetings are closed and they are working on a report. He said the department may have also received word that a Transportation Department study on dedicated trains -- which has been going on for 15 years -- may be finished soon.
He estimated using dedicated trains could cost up to 40 percent more than the alternative, but the higher costs could even out over time based on using fewer casks and other factors.
Department spokesman Craig Stevens said making the decision on the trains now will allow the department to move forward with outreach to states and tribes regarding routing, planning and training.
Yucca critics have long complained about the department's lack of notification to potentially affected cities along the routes where waste will be moved.
Nevada's congressional delegation does not want to see any trains, dedicated or otherwise, bring waste to Nevada.
"The recent attacks in London and last year's train bombings in Madrid should be a stark reminder of the vulnerability of America's rail system," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said.
"Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears perfectly content to move forward on a plan that will paint a giant bull's-eye on shipments of nuclear waste and on the communities through which they will pass. Given the current lack of resources for securing America's rails, this is the height of irresponsibility and will leave our families in danger."
Nevada senators said the Energy Department's announcement did not ease their fears about the dangers of shipping waste.
"It's not a solution because we don't want the waste coming there in the first place," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the DOE policy announcement a "smoke screen" to disguise concerns about transporting tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste.
"What the Department of Energy seems to be missing is that they have nowhere to ship the waste. Yucca Mountain is never going to open," Reid said. "This latest make-believe attempt further demonstrates that there is no real plan. In this so-called policy, DOE turns a blind eye to the most serious of threats like a terrorist attack or accident, and does not bother to factor in that a number of plants cannot ship by rail, nor is there a rail in Nevada running to the proposed site."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 19, 2005
Subpoena on the way for DOE, Porter says
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A House committee chairman was readying a subpoena as the Department of Energy missed a deadline Monday for supplying Congress with documents for a Yucca Mountain investigation.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee will issue a subpoena today to break a stalemate in an investigation of worker e-mail messages. The e-mails suggested quality assurance documents might have been falsified on the nuclear waste repository project.
"The Department of Energy has continued to be uncooperative," Porter said after meeting with the chairman, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. Porter leads the subcommittee conducting the inquiry.
Energy Department officials had offered to allow Porter and his investigators to review documents at agency headquarters. They have expressed concern that the Nevada lawmaker would make sensitive documents public, which they said could complicate the department's efforts to seek a repository license.
"We have made these documents available over the past three weeks, also offering to make weekend arrangements or evening arrangements for them to see whatever documents they want to see," agency spokesman Craig Stevens said. "They have yet to reach out."
Porter rejected the offer and called it an "insult to Congress."
The seeds of the dispute were planted early in April.
Energy Department officials were said to be angered when, over their objections, Porter released documents given to his federal work force and agency organization subcommittee several weeks after Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman revealed the e-mails.
Since then, an Energy Department investigation has tentatively concluded the allegations in the e-mails did not compromise Yucca Mountain science or decisions by President Bush to designate the Nevada site for nuclear waste burial.
Joseph Hevesi, a hydrologist who wrote many of the e-mails, testified before Congress last month that he did not falsify documents. He said he had a reputation of being "flippant in my e-mail."
Porter, like most elected Nevada leaders, is a Yucca Mountain opponent and has expressed skepticism of DOE's pronouncement the program has a clean bill of health.
Other state officials have expressed hope that the subcommittee's inquiry would uncover science or management flaws that could be brought up during licensing.
Stevens did not say Monday how department would respond to a subpoena.
Porter said the subpoena would demand documents he had requested to see in April, including personnel records of the three scientists who have been identified as primary e-mail authors and the research to which they contributed.
Porter had asked for a copy of a 5,800-page draft license application the DOE had been preparing for the repository.
Attorneys for the Energy Department and Nevada are in a legal dispute before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over access to the same document.
On Monday, DOE acting general counsel Eric Fygi questioned why Porter's subcommittee needed to see the draft license paperwork.
"This sort of draft document is quite unrelated to those that chronicle activities of federal employees," Fygi said in a letter sent to the subcommittee.
Fygi said he feared the panel's document requests "could metastasize without discrete bounds" to encompass other Yucca licensing material.
The agency "has attempted to balance the concerns of the department with the needs of the committee," Stevens said. "We want to make sure we follow the letter of the law to make sure we are following the proper steps of the licensing process."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 19, 2005
Agency plans special trains for waste site
Department decides Yucca Mountain should use dedicated rail service
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department said Monday it plans to ship nuclear waste to Nevada using dedicated railroad service rather than on trains that would carry other cargo too.
The department, announcing part of its Yucca Mountain transportation policy, cited safety, security and cost benefits to using trains devoted solely to radioactive spent fuel in its shipping program for the proposed repository.
A two-page policy statement indicated mixed-cargo trains might be used in some instances, but the agency plans to use dedicated rail "for its usual transport" of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Several other issues remain outstanding, such as the Energy Department's plans to transport nuclear waste within Nevada and what type of protective casks will encase the radioactive materials during transport.
An environmental impact study of a 318-mile railroad corridor from Caliente to the repository site in Nye County was expected in the spring but will be delayed until next year while government officials seek to address concerns of ranchers along the corridor, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said.
The Association of American Railroads had urged the agency to ship nuclear waste on dedicated trains, which it said offered advantages such as not needing to be switched often at rail yards and being able to use advances in safety technology.
The decision to use dedicated trains "was inevitable given national security and logistical considerations," said David Blee, executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, a nuclear waste shipping coalition.
The agency said dedicated trains could travel faster to Nevada and enable the project to operate with fewer rail cars and fewer casks because equipment would not sit idle at rail yards.
"Analyses indicated the primary benefit is the significant cost savings over the lifetime of the Yucca Mountain Project," the agency said. No figures were given.
The agency's estimate is 3,500 rail shipments of radioactive spent fuel from commercial power plants and nuclear waste from government weapons plants.
Robert Halstead, a transportation expert working for Nevada, said the the policy falls short of the "total commitment" to dedicated rail that had been urged by the state and the rail industry.
Halstead said the numbers of shipments could be larger depending on the configuration of the dedicated trains.
He challenged one of the department's safety arguments and said dedicated trains would not cut significantly into "dwell time" during which radioactive waste would sit at rail yards in Chicago; Memphis or Nashville, Tenn.; or Texas awaiting other nuclear cargo to fill out a trainload for the journey west.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., contended use of dedicated trains will make them bigger targets for attack.
"The recent attacks in London and last year's train bombings in Madrid should be a stark reminder of the vulnerability of America's rail system," Berkley said. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears perfectly content to move forward on a plan that will paint a giant bull's eye on shipments of nuclear waste and on the communities through which they will pass."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Energy Department was putting the cart before the horse.
"What the Department of Energy seems to be missing is that they have nowhere to ship the waste," Reid said in a statement. "Yucca Mountain is never going to open."
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Las Vegas SUN
July 18, 2005
News briefs for July 18, 2005
Yucca dust suit allowed to continue
A federal class action lawsuit alleging that Yucca Mountain contractors didn't warn workers of the hazards of silica dust can go forward, a federal judge ruled on Friday.
U.S. District Judge James Mahan denied a motion brought by Bechtel Corp. and others to dismiss the case, according to Mahan's office.
The suit, filed in March 2004, was brought on behalf of former Yucca Mountain employees who were involved in drilling at Yucca or who were allegedly exposed to silica in the Yucca Mountain tunnel.
One of the plaintiffs named in the suit, Greg Griego, worked at Yucca Mountain for almost a decade beginning in 1993 and was previously diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can include chronic bronchitis and emphysema and is caused by tobacco smoke as well as dust and chemicals, according to the federal National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 18, 2005
Rep. Porter announces subpoena for Yucca Mountain documents
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Nevada congressman said he will subpoena documents from the Energy Department about possible paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
The department missed a Monday deadline set by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., to hand over documents, including personnel records of scientists on the project, organizational charts and research details.
Porter, who chairs a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he met with the chairman of the full committee, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who agreed to subpoena the documents Tuesday.
"We have asked for these documents since early April. They have been uncooperative," Porter said. "I'm going to use every tool I have available and turn over every stone to make sure we have all the information."
An Energy Department spokesman said Porter and his staff can look at the documents at a department reading room. Department officials have expressed concern that if they give the documents to Porter he will make them public - something he did with the original documents indicating the possibility of fraud on the project.
"It's unfortunate that the congressman has chosen to go this route, especially in light of the fact that all the information he has requested has been available to any member of his subcommittee or staff for three weeks," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said.
Porter said the offer to come and view the documents was "a continual insult to the U.S. Congress."
Porter's panel has been investigating e-mails written from 1998 to 2000 by government scientists that suggest they made up facts and kept two sets of figures, one for themselves and one to satisfy quality assurance officers.
The Energy Department disclosed the existence of the e-mails in March, and they are the subject of a scientific review and criminal investigations by the inspectors general of the Energy and Interior departments.
Energy Department officials have reached a preliminary conclusion that the e-mails don't undermine the scientific justification for the dump planned for 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In a letter to Porter on Monday, Energy Department Acting General Counsel Eric Fygi also expressed concerns that the inquiry by Porter threatened "to metastasize without discrete bounds to embrace all current and future Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding matters."
Like the rest of the Nevada congressional delegation, Porter opposes Yucca Mountain, and he's been able to use his chairmanship of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the federal work force and agency organization to mount an investigation.
Yucca Mountain was approved by Congress and President Bush in 2002, and is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of spent commercial reactor fuel and high-level defense waste, to be buried for 10,000 years in the Nevada desert.
Funding shortfalls and other problems, including the document controversy, have delayed the planned opening date to 2012 at the earliest.
On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
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Las Vegas SUN
July 18, 2005
DOE says dedicated trains to be used for nuclear waste shipments
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear waste will be shipped to a national repository in the Nevada desert on dedicated railroad cars, rather than sharing trains with other cargo, the Energy Department announced Monday.
Although general freight trains will be an option, DOE's policy will be to use dedicated trains for the estimated 3,500 shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level defense waste bound for the Yucca Mountain repository, the department said.
The trains will carry waste from sites in some three dozen states to the repository planned 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In addition to the train shipments, some 1,100 truck shipments will be needed, though they won't be affected by the transportation policy, officials said.
Using dedicated trains will be cheaper and more secure than regular freight trains, department officials said.
"The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management is adopting a policy to use dedicated trains for its usual shipments of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada, when the repository is operational," Paul M. Golan, the agency's principal deputy director, wrote in a letter released to those involved with the project.
Yucca Mountain is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to be buried for 10,000 years and beyond.
Funding shortages and other problems - including a recent controversy over possible paperwork fraud on the project - have delayed the opening date, now estimated for 2012 or later.
On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
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New York Times
July 19, 2005
Queens Complaint Disrupts Cleanup Near L.I. Reactor
By Bruce Lambert
At the site of a deactivated reactor on Long Island, cleanup crews were filling the last few empty rail cars with radioactive soil yesterday for shipment to Utah for disposal. About 63 cars, each holding 90 tons, have been loaded and are ready to go.
But objections from the Queens borough president have halted the shipment of those thousands of tons of low-level radioactive soil, which the crews have excavated around an old graphite reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, Suffolk County.
Hundreds of carloads have already been shipped and dumped without incident, Brookhaven officials say.
"We'll be out of the loading business till this gets resolved," said Leslie Hill, the director of the cleanup project.
For now, the cars have been left to sit on sidings near the reactor. Only a couple more cars remain to be loaded, with little room on the tracks for additional cars.
The trains stopped running on June 23, after the borough president, Helen M. Marshall, belatedly learned of the shipments and objected. She said that they violated a 1997 agreement requiring that her office be notified of such hazardous material and that it could not be moved on the rails without her permission.
"I just want to be sure it's safe," Ms. Marshall said in an interview yesterday. "Certainly after 9/11, we have to be careful."
The 1997 agreement was signed by the previous borough president, Claire Shulman, and officials of the Long Island Rail Road and a freight service, the New York & Atlantic Railway. That freight company has been handling the shipments, using the railroad's tracks through Queens.
When Ms. Marshall complained, the railroad suspended the use of its lines until the dispute was resolved. "They're trying to resume doing the shipments," Ms. Marshall said of the freight company, "but fortunately the L.I.R.R. is still honoring the agreement."
The freight company has disputed the validity of the agreement it signed. In 2003, the company obtained a letter from Susan M. Kath, chief of environmental law at the New York City Law Department, concluding that, "the Queens borough president lacked the authority to enter into the agreement." The opinion added: "For this reason, it is not in effect, and its terms are not enforceable by the Queens borough president or the City of New York."
Ms. Marshall said she was disturbed that her office was not advised of that letter until now and that freight company officials, with whom she has met on other issues, never told her about plans to ship radioactive waste.
The freight company has claimed that the shipments were cleared with the appropriate authorities, Ms. Marshall said. But she said that in a meeting last week, she found no evidence of such approval from representatives of city agencies that deal with related issues, like environmental protection, hazardous materials and security.
Ms. Marshall said she hoped for another meeting this week to ensure that all relevant agencies were aware of the project and approved of how it was being carried out. "As long as everything is done correctly and safely, I'm not against it," she said, adding that she will rely on the experts.
The Long Island Rail Road issued a statement last week saying, "At this point it's up to the NY&AR and Queens to come to an agreement on the shipments." Officials of the freight company did not respond to calls seeking comment.
In 2003, 300 cars of waste was shipped, some to an upstate landfill because the waste had no measurable contamination, and the rest went to Utah because it had trace amounts of radiation and mercury, though the amounts were so slight that the soil did not come under federal regulation, according to Mr. Hill.
Then starting in 2004, another 200 cars of radioactive soil was shipped to Utah, Mr. Hill said. The level of contamination was the lowest to require federal regulation, far less than the exposure from a dental X-ray, he said. The rail cars that carry the soil are carefully lined and covered, he added.
By today, the number of cars loaded and waiting to go will total about 65. Finishing the job would require filling another 35 cars, Mr. Hill estimated. "We're truly at the finish line," he said, "so it's quite disappointing."
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DOE
July 19, 2005
Department of Energy Policy Statement for Use of Dedicated Trains for Waste Shipments to Yucca Mountain
POLICY STATEMENT
The Department of Energy (DOE) will use dedicated train service (DTS) for its usual rail transport of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) to the Yucca Mountain Repository site in Nevada when the repository is operational.
BACKGROUND
On April 8, 2004, the Department issued a record of decision on using rail as the preferred mode for transport of SNF and HLW to the repository. Using rail would result in fewer shipments than using trucks and would reduce environmental impacts. The term “dedicated train’ refers to train service dedicated to one commodity (in this case, SNF and HLW). Past and current SNF shipping campaigns by DOE programs, including fuel from Three Mile Island and the West Valley Demonstration Project, the Foreign Research Reactor SNF Acceptance Program, and commercial campaigns, have used DTS.
DEDICATED TRAIN SERVICE BENEFITS
The benefits for the use of dedicated trains can be grouped into categories of safety, security, cost and operations. Safety
SNF and HLW is shipped safely regardless of mode or type of service, primarily due to the stringent regulations in place and the robust nature of the transport packages involved.
However, the radiological risk resulting from transport without incident may be lower due to decreased time in transit.
Security
DOE shipments have been and will continue to be made securely using both DTS and general freight service. Escort and other physical protection features can be employed using either type of service. DTS does offer some potential advantages, such as:
• Increased command and control capabilities. Shorter DTS trains allow better visual monitoring from the locomotive and escort car.
• Avoidance of lengthy “dwell times’ in rail yards.
System Cost
Analyses indicate that the primary benefit of using DTS is the significant cost savings over the lifetime of the Yucca Mountain project. The cost of DTS is offset by a reduced fleet size and its attendant operations and maintenance. Operations
The use of DTS will result in several benefits for repository and transportation operations.
• Transit and turnaround times will be shorter using DTS, enabling the repository to operate with fewer casks and fewer railcars (i.e., equipment will not sit idle in rail yards). In contrast, using general freight service would increase the required size of the cask and railcar fleet by about 40 percent due to the increased transit time associated with general freight service.
• Use of DTS provides greater operational flexibility and efficiency for the waste management system due to reduced time in transit, and greater predictability in routing and scheduling.
• Repository operational resources could be better managed by taking advantage of more predictable shipment and receipt schedules. • Transportation planning and operations would be simplified by narrowing mode and type to mostly rail coupled with the use of DTS.
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Congressman Jon Porter (R-NV)
July 18, 2005
Press Release
DOE Fails to Meet Final Deadline for Handing Over Yucca Mountain Documents
Porter left with no choice but to begin subpoena process
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Energy (DOE) has failed to hand over documents related to the science surrounding the Yucca Mountain Project, the latest in a series of refusals to cooperate with Congress. In a letter sent to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last Wednesday, Third District Congressman Jon Porter gave DOE until 4 PM ET today to produce the outstanding documents. Porter sent the letter in his official role as Chairman of the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee, which is overseeing the investigation into employees involved with the Yucca Mountain Project and the science behind it.
“I´m not surprised, but nonetheless disappointed by the fact that the Department of Energy did not supply the requested documents,’ said Porter. “However, I will not be deterred by the lack of responsiveness, and remain committed to pursuing and finishing what we began—a thorough and complete investigation of the safety behind the Yucca Mountain Project. Today´s events leave me with no choice but to begin the process of issuing a subpoena for these documents, as this investigation is simply too important to be held up. Enough is enough.’
A timetable for the subpoena process will be determined in the coming days.
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GovExec
July 18, 2005
Nuclear Reaction
By Beth Dickey
bdickey@govexec.com
Four months after the revelation that scientific documentation for the nation's first nuclear waste dump may have been faked, Judy Treichel and Steve Frishman figured they would be dancing on the grave of the Yucca Mountain Project. Instead, the two Nevada activists still are trying to bury the proposal.
Summertime is scramble time. There are public hearings to attend, lawsuits to press, dollars to raise and federal bureaucracies to fight as the Energy Department continues its pursuit of a license to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive materials beneath the 1,200- foot-high ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "The e-mails should have put this thing down," says Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a nonprofit organization that has waged an 18-year battle against the project.
The e-mails of which she speaks were written between 1998 and 2000. The messages appear to indicate that one or more U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists fabricated quality assurances on computer models used to determine how much water could seep through rock in Yucca Mountain, corrode the underground storage containers and carry off dangerous radioactive particles.
"I've made up the dates and names," one worker confesses in a March 30, 2000, message that continues, "If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff." It's found in a 90-page collection of heavily redacted e-mails the Energy and Interior departments released to Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., in March. A few mention "fudge factors" or end with "destroy this message."
Still other messages suggest there was a culture of intimidation in which scientists doing the environmental analysis were being pressured to provide the right answer and not find the scientific truth. The mere hint of impropriety is enough to convince Frishman, a geologist and statepaid consultant, that the opposition has been right all along about the likelihood of contamination reaching Nevada's water table. Yucca Mountain was chosen because it is supposed to be able to isolate highly radioactive waste for at least 10,000 years, but opponents argue the protection might not last even a few hundred. "If you have workers falsifying any part of their work or ignoring results management doesn't want to have, then this goes right to the heart of the safety question," Frishman says.
It's not the first time quality assurance at Yucca Mountain has gotten a bad rap. The Government Accountability Office last year detailed persistent problems that could delay licensing and operation.
The e-mails came to light during a document review the Energy Department must complete to get the license. The contractor, Bechtel SAIC Co., says it discovered them in December but didn't notify the department until March. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told the public on March 16. "This behavior indicated in the e-mails is completely unacceptable," Bodman said, promising to investigate the data and correct any deficiencies. His disclosure prompted criminal probes by the Energy and Interior departments' inspectors general and the FBI.
The Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, which Porter chairs, was inquiring, too. "I want to make sure there hasn't been undue pressure by DOE or USGS officials to get the job done at any cost," Porter told Government Executive. "We also want to find out if this is a culture that spreads [beyond] the Yucca Mountain Project . . . because DOE has control over nuclear power plants and homeland security." He had subpoenaed the principal author of the e-mails to testify at a hearing June 29.
USGS hydrologist Joseph Hevesi denied falsifying anything. Instead, he said, he was venting frustration over quality assurance procedures that were being developed at the same time crucial research was being done. Hevesi said that he, too, is "somewhat horrified" when he reads the messages now, but insisted the science is sound. "I have completely rethought how I use the whole e-mail system and how I communicate," he said.
The scandal might have put the site's future in serious doubt, but the government is resolved to see it through. Energy has concluded that the water flow studies are sound, but Yucca Mountain Deputy Director W. John Arthur told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that the information will be "replaced, redone or remediated" for the application.
The application was to have been submitted last December. Preparations for a 2010 opening have been set back at least two years by problems, including the documentation flap, budget cuts and a federal court ruling against an insufficient Environmental Protection Agency radiation standard last year. Also, in January, Energy disclosed that workers who drilled tunnels in the mountain might have been exposed to toxic silica dust.
Some say the e-mail revelations will make it more difficult for the Energy Department to meet at least one requirement - the test of character and fitness to be a licensee. Meanwhile, pro-Yucca forces are grouping for a campaign in more than 40 states where consumers are paying to send spent fuel to the mountain, and Nevada is spending roughly $1.5 million a year trying to stave off the pending deliveries.
In June, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $577 million for the project, $74 million less than the administration's request for 2006. Unlike an earlier House bill, it didn't include money for a site to store waste temporarily while Yucca's problems are being solved. The House bill fully funded Yucca with $651 million and added $10 million for an interim dump.
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USA Today
July 18, 2005
Former critics see the light
The nuclear power industry has some surprising new friends: environmentalists.
Longtime opponents, including Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, have done an about-face, and that might be enough to revive the nuclear industry after a quarter-century hiatus.
No nuclear plant has been built in the USA since 1979, when the accident at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania made the nation fearful of nuclear energy. Those fears were further stoked in 1986 by the meltdown at Chernobyl in the then-Soviet Union.
Plant design has improved since, as have operational standards. At the same time, U.S. energy demands have grown and are expected to increase 50% over the next 20 years. That squeeze has led former critics to conclude that nuclear energy, if unappealing, is better than any other option.
The facts are straightforward: Nuclear power, which produces 20% of the nation's electricity, creates virtually none of the pollution that causes climate change and delivers electricity cheaper than other forms of generation do. The primary alternatives are coal-fired plants, which account for half the nation's electricity but emit pollutants, or plants powered by natural gas, which has doubled in price since 1999. New technologies, while promising, are not yet capable of meeting the expected need.
In the most significant indication of the way sentiment has shifted, energy bills in both houses of Congress encourage investment and would renew federally backed insurance for the industry. Under the Senate bill, new nuclear plants could qualify for loan guarantees and tax credits. Similar incentives are provided for renewable energy sources, such as geothermal, wind and biomass.
The incentives are needed, at least briefly, to jump-start construction. Without government stimulus, no reactors would be built for 20 more years, the Energy Department says. With it, industry leaders say, two existing consortiums might soon apply for a construction permit.
Even so, two other issues still raise concerns. One is an old one: What to do with nuclear waste? The other is new: How to protect against terrorism?
The industry has had more success addressing the latter. Since 9/11, plant security personnel has increased from 5,000 to 8,000, and even a direct hit by a large commercial aircraft is unlikely to have severe radiological consequences, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says. Were there to be a problem, caused by terrorism or error, phone lines link the NRC to control rooms.
There still is no definitive plan to deal with 52,000 tons of radioactive waste, most of it stored at the plants. A planned permanent storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada won't open until at least 2012, and it still faces challenges after decades of debate.
That debate needs to end. Yucca Mountain is the only viable storage site.
Twenty-six years after Three Mile Island, it's time for the nation to update its thinking about nuclear energy. If more reliable and cleaner energy is the goal, nuclear power has to be part of the solution.
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USA Today
July 18, 2005
Still dangerous, impractical
By Michael Mariotte
Without a single viable reactor order since October 1973, the nuclear power industry has been moribund for decades. Left to market forces and public opinion, nuclear power would continue on its deserved road to oblivion. And nothing has changed to make nuclear power more attractive:
• It continues to be the most dangerous method ever devised to produce electricity.
• A scientifically defensible radioactive waste program continues to elude the United States and every other nuclear nation.
• Building more nuclear reactors would simply add tempting new terrorist targets across the country.
Donating billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry — already the most heavily subsidized energy industry over the past 50 years — would provide further confirmation that private investment already has rejected this obsolete technology. If nuclear power, a mature technology by any definition, cannot make it on its own, why should taxpayers have to shoulder a burden that Wall Street has spurned?
Nuclear power's possible role in addressing climate change has been vastly overstated. The nuclear fuel chain is not free of greenhouse gas emissions and, according to several studies, to make even a modest difference in emissions (a 20% or so reduction) would require a nuclear program of incredible magnitude: in the United States alone the construction of some 300 new reactors.
If we started today, that would be one every two months for the next 50 years at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, increased risk of meltdown and the need for several new Yucca Mountain-size radioactive waste sites and proliferation-prone uranium enrichment plants. It's an impossible, and undesirable, task and could not be accomplished in time to prevent global warming.
Diverting our resources to nuclear power now would only prevent the deployment of those underfunded energy technologies that really can make a difference at far less cost, such as improved energy efficiency, wind, solar, non-nuclear hydrogen and better electrical transmission systems.
The issue is not whether we should use nuclear power to address climate change: the choice is to use nuclear power or address climate change. The Earth demands that we choose the latter course.
Michael Mariotte is executive director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an anti-nuclear power group.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 18, 2005
Titus to run for governor in '06
Senate minority leader announces in Minden that she'll pursue Democratic nomination
By Christina Almeida
The Associated Press
Nevada Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus announced her candidacy for governor Sunday, pledging to reach out to voters across the state and conduct an inclusive campaign.
Titus, a Las Vegas Democrat who has served as minority leader since 1993, officially launched her campaign Sunday evening at an appearance in Minden, in rural Douglas County.
"Part of the message in this campaign is that we should be one state, not liberal versus conservative, not rural versus urban," Titus told The Associated Press shortly before her scheduled announcement.
Titus joins what is expected to be a crowded field in the race to replace Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn, who faces term limits in 2006.
Her likely opposition in the Democratic primary will be Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins of Henderson. Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson is also mulling a run for the Democratic nomination.
On the Republican side, state Sen. Bob Beers of Las Vegas and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt have both announced their candidacies. Rep. Jim Gibbons is considered an early front-runner, although he has yet to make a formal announcement.
Others considering a run, largely at the urging of Guinn, are University Chancellor Jim Rogers and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell.
Titus, a political science professor at UNLV, said she has the integrity, experience and the commitment to be governor.
"I'm a straight talker, and that's what people like," Titus said. "I'm a fighter. You've got to fight the federal government on Yucca Mountain. You have to fight other states for water."
She said she plans to run an aggressive campaign that will touch voters everywhere in Nevada. "I want to make a statement that this is going to be a statewide campaign," she said. "We're going to aggressively campaign in each county, starting in Minden."
Titus also will announce her candidacy in Reno this morning and at 3 p.m. in Las Vegas in the Cambridge Community Center, 3930 Cambridge St., Room A.
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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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