Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, July 22, 2005
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Business Wire
July 22, 2005
Nevada Wonders What DOE is Hiding by Withholding Yucca Documents
CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 22, 2005--Nevada representatives said Friday that the U.S. Department of Energy continues to hide important information about its plans to seek a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build a proposed nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
"DOE is desperately trying to hide the truth about the dump," said Nevada attorney Joe Egan.
Egan is representing Nevada in its fight against the federal government's plan to license and build the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, less than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. His remarks came Friday, the deadline issued by a congressional committee for DOE to deliver Yucca Mountain documents to the House Government Reform Committee under a subpoena delivered Wednesday by committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va.
Davis sent the subpoena at the recommendation of Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who is conducting an investigation to determine if scientists falsified documents related to the project. Porter has been requesting such documents since April, though DOE officials have missed previous deadlines to supply the information to Congress.
Bob Loux, director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the actions of DOE officials continue to contradict their public promises of keeping the licensing process open and "transparent" to the public.
"How long will they continue to hide these documents?" Loux asked, suggesting that DOE officials fear the information may damage the project if it is made public. "It makes you wonder what DOE is hiding."
This would be the latest in a long line of denied requests by DOE, Loux said. He said other recent examples include:
-- DOE has spent billions developing a draft NRC license application for the Yucca Mountain Project. Loux said DOE officials continue to "hide from public view" a document that was written in 2002.
-- DOE refused a request from Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects to release its draft application.
-- DOE refused Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's request for the U.S. Secretary of Energy to share DOE's draft application with the state. Egan said, "This request was submitted pursuant to Nevada's rights to full disclosure of Yucca information under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Invoking his prerogatives under the NWPA, Gov. Guinn then wrote President Bush requesting that he order DOE officials to release the draft application. No such order was made."
-- Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval's team of attorneys filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the draft application. "DOE denied it," Egan said. "Nevada appealed. DOE denied the appeal."
-- Nevada's attorneys sought access to the draft through NRC regulatory procedures applicable to all Yucca documents. "DOE refused again," Egan said.
-- Nevada's attorneys sought access to the draft application from NRC's Yucca Licensing Board. "Using every conceivable trick to hide it," Egan said, "DOE called it 'privileged,' 'preliminary,' and 'not relevant' to licensing." The board said it will rule on Nevada's request in August.
DOE spokesman Craig Stevens rationalized DOE's decision not to turn over documents to a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee by expressing concern that the subcommittee would make the documents public, and that would somehow damage DOE's ability to implement the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and participate in the NRC's licensing process.
Quite the contrary, Loux said.
DOE's acting general counsel, Eric Fygi, complained in a letter to the subcommittee that providing the documents requested by the subcommittee threatens "to metastasize without discrete bounds to embrace all current and future Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding matters."
"The real cancer is the scientific and policy fraud that's being perpetrated on Congress and the public," Loux said.
Contacts
State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, Carson City
Robert Loux, 775-687-3744
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Las Vegas SUN
July 22, 2005
DOE turns over subpoenaed documents in Yucca Mountain inquiry
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department on Friday turned over more than 1,600 pages of subpoenaed documents to a congressional panel investigating possible paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
However, the subcommittee chairman heading the investigation, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said that some of the documents he demanded were missing.
"There's not a reason addressed, and we will find out and we'll move forward, and if they choose to not be in full compliance we then have available to us to move forward with a contempt of Congress" action, Porter said.
Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said Porter's request involved thousands of documents and the department was as responsive as possible in the two days it was given.
"It is only natural that it would take more time to assemble additional documents in light of the scope of his request," Stevens said. "Any additional existing documents that would be responsive to his request will be produced."
Porter's panel, a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, is investigating e-mails written between 1998 and 2000 by government scientists suggesting they made up details of their work on Yucca and kept two sets of books, one for themselves and one to satisfy quality-assurance officials.
The Energy Department declined to turn over papers he requested as part of the probe, instead offering to make them available in a department reading room so that he wouldn't be able to release them publicly.
In response, Porter subpoenaed a list of documents including personnel records of the scientists involved, organizational charts and records related to the Energy Department's scientific review of the purported falsifications.
Much of the information was turned over Friday, but one piece was not - the Energy Department's draft of the license application it must submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to build the dump. Nevada officials have long sought that document.
In a letter to Porter earlier this week, DOE acting general counsel Eric Fygi complained that the scope of Porter's inquiry threatened to "metastasize without discrete bounds."
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of spent commercial reactor fuel and high-level defense waste. The opening date has been repeatedly delayed and is now expected in 2012 or later.
On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
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Las Vegas SUN
July 22, 2005
GAO to update probe of Yucca Mountain
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Government Accountability Office will be in Nevada next month to update an investigation on the Yucca Mountain project.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., requested the review in April, after the department revealed its discovery of employee e-mails that suggest workers falsified scientific work.
Several of the e-mails, which Porter's subcommittee made public, showed disdain for the quality assurance program, with one employee writing "Piss on QA."
Known as QA, the quality assurance program is designed to assure the accuracy of Yucca research to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Once the department submits the Yucca license application to the NRC, its reviewers will use quality assurance documents to trace documents and models to see how scientists drew their conclusions.
GAO released its last report on the project in April 2004 titled "Yucca Mountain, Persistent Quality Assurance Problems Could Delay Repository Licensing and Operation," based on a request by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev.
Porter wants the GAO to update the report and find what the department has done to improve quality assurance work as well as what concerns have been raised by employees working on the project.
Porter is chairman of the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee and is concerned about employee coercion or intimidation. His spokesman, T.J. Crawford, said he also wants a more detailed look at harassment of whistle blowers within the project.
Yucca project spokesman Allen Benson said the department will find out more about what the review will entail once it starts.
Benson also confirmed that R. Dennis Brown, the project's quality assurance director is leaving.
Brown was in charge of the project's quality assurance program as it received criticism from the GAO as well as an audit by the commission.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 22, 2005
Letter: State GOP must never concede on nuclear dump
I appreciated Richard Rychtarik's letter in reply to my July 8 letter on Yucca Mountain. But nowhere in my letter did I imply that we should not increase our fossil fuel usage. I complained about subsides for nuclear plants, which pose safety risks. If they are not risky, then why is the industry still insisting on coverage under the Price-Anderson Act, which guarantees that taxpayers would pay most of the damages in the event of a nuclear accident?
We will not have a new nuclear plant online for at least another 10 years, and even if new plants are twice as efficient as the current aged plants, we will need at least 52 more. Instead of heavily subsidizing this large number of plants, why not subsidize alternative technologies that are becoming more realistic with oil at $60 a barrel?
The main thrust of my letter was the reluctance of Nevada Republicans to use political pressure against President Bush, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an effort to get them to stop ignoring the major problems surrounding Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain. These include a faulty radiation standard and the e-mails by scientists casting doubt on the ability of the mountain to safely contain the nation's nuclear waste. These problems have been widely reported, as has the suit against Yucca Mountain by the Western Shoshones, who have a good case that turning the mountain into a nuclear waste dump violates the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863.
In his letter, Rychtarik said, "Regardless of Nevada's stand on Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste storage site will probably come to pass." I believe such statements are defeatist and a resignation to the Bush administration's apparent policy of allowing political expediency to determine whether Yucca Mountain opens instead of the president's promise of sound science.
Frank Perna
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 22, 2005
YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Final weeks for quality control chief
Departure of second official announced
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The director of often-criticized Yucca Mountain quality controls said Thursday he is leaving, the second key departure this week from the nuclear waste program.
The announced exit of Denny Brown after three years as director of the Office of Quality Assurance coincided with confirmation that the Government Accountability Office is launching a new Yucca Mountain investigation.
The GAO, which works for Congress, is dispatching auditors to Las Vegas next week to measure DOE's efforts to improve its quality assurance, a key safety element of the project, according to T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
Porter asked that the GAO update a 2004 study, Crawford said. That report concluded DOE was failing to fix quality assurance problems and that promised reforms were not structured to succeed.
Investigators also will examine quality assurance concerns that have been raised by whistle-blowers, according to documents obtained Thursday.
Brown's announcement came a day after it was reported that Joseph Ziegler, the director of Yucca Mountain licensing, had resigned last week. Earlier this month, the project's management company Bechtel SAIC confirmed president John Mitchell was being transferred to another division.
The departure of top managers appears to be a blow to the Energy Department as it tries to navigate legal and technical obstacles to preparing a repository license application.
"Either the rats are deserting the sinking ship or these are stand-up guys who want to do the right thing, are being told to get a license or else, and they have integrity and are leaving," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
Brown said in an e-mail sent to Yucca employees Thursday that he had been working under a three-year contract that expires early in October, and he would be leaving then to pursue other interests.
Brown was hired in 2002 to bring order to Yucca quality assurance, which had been criticized for weaknesses throughout the 20-year history of the repository program. Criticism did not stop during his tenure.
Quality assurance is a key safety element for nuclear programs that must pass muster with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as the Energy Department hopes to do with the proposed nuclear waste repository.
Nevada officials, congressional investigators and evaluators from the NRC criticized Yucca quality controls in reports dating to 1988. Energy Department officials have defended progress in Yucca quality assurance, saying they had an effective program in place to support a repository license application.
More recently, the Yucca project was rocked by allegations in worker e-mails that quality assurance documents supporting hydrology research at the site may have been falsified.
Brown also was tied to an internal investigation this spring that looked into allegations of harassment and discrimination within the Office of Quality Assurance, officials within the project confirmed.
An anonymous whistle-blower reported the allegations and other perceived shortcomings in Yucca quality assurance in a March 15 letter sent to members of Congress and officials in the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A formal complaint also was filed with the Yucca Mountain Employee Concerns program, two project officials said.
The outcome of the investigation could not be learned Thursday night. DOE spokesman Allen Benson said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation took place.
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KRNV
July 22, 2005
Management shake-up continues at Yucca Mountain project in Nevada
A management shake-up is continuing at the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada.
Officials say Denny Brown is leaving after three years as director of quality assurance at the site Congress and the Bush administration picked to entomb the nation's nuclear waste.
The announcement yesterday came a day after officials confirmed the resignation of Joseph Ziegler as the Energy Department's director of Yucca Mountain licensing.
Earlier this month, project management company Bechtel SAIC said John Mitchell, the president and general manager of the Yucca project, was being reassigned.
Project officials have denied the job changes have anything to do with questions that have been raised about quality controls at the project.
In another development, an aide to Congressman Jon Porter says the Government Accountability Office is sending auditors to Las Vegas next week to measure Energy Department efforts to improve quality assurance.
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 22, 2005
Community Viewpoint
Yucca Mountain is a wasteland alright, right in our backyard
By Sally Devlin
When our great federal government gives money for Yucca Mountain with no strings attached, what can you do? What the Department of Energy does is write 500-plus page quarterly reports that contain all the computer models that they can devise on every subject. DOE puts disclaimers on every page and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts its disclaimer in too.
For those of us who are a bit computer savvy these modeled probabilities on paper (7,000,000 pages so far for NRC to read for the licensing) keep the laboratories and university laboratories in "the big green."
In 1997 microbic invasion and the colloidal movement of water were introduced into the science. Inside the current Y.M. 5-mile tunnel add fungi (mold, mildew) everywhere in this fractured, fissured mine. The radio nuclides in the droplets of water will seep through the proposed 100 miles of tunnels and destroy the drip shields and canisters and the engineered barriers in a couple of years. There is no design after all these years for a mine or tunnel of 100 miles.
There never has been a tested prototype for the canister that will (not) last for 10 years much less 300 years (retrieval of waste?). "Ingrid Bergman," the volcano, is just 12 miles from the proposed repository. If the DOE possesses tephra divination skills, what would happen if 125-mile winds blew when "Ingrid" blows up?
We have no health department in Nye County. Our overworked sheriffs, fire and emergency management personnel would have to handle any accidents, medical emergencies and all other contingencies that could and will occur with the most dangerous project ever proposed for this nation.
How do we get locally elected officials, elected federal government officials, government bureaucratic agencies to be responsible to the people who pay their salaries? Twelve billion dollars has been spent on this mine hole. If we the public join together maybe we can find solutions for the HLW waste problem and stop this fraud.
If you the public have ideas, solutions, concepts, etc., please let me know your opinions. Let's stop this waste!
Devlin writes from Pahrump.
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 22, 2005
Yucca suppository
It's encouraging to see public meetings will be held by federal agencies responsible for storage of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain Repository (PVT June 22).
But why (fer gossake!) will future meetings be held in Las Vegas? Is it so federal agencies can affirmatively assuage the public that no nuclear waste will be transported through Clark County for storage at a site 100 miles north of Las Vegas in Nye County?
Perhaps it will be the only opportunity for the reporting authorities to say something truthful and they don't want to miss the golden opportunity.
Wouldn't it be more logical to hold public meetings at a location encouraging attendance by the residents affected? Pahrump first comes to mind, but since it is located on a different flood plain and aquifer, why not hold the meeting in Amargosa Valley, or Beatty, or both?
Oh, they don't want to be forced to tap dance and give dishonest answers to residents with the most legitimate concerns regarding nuclear waste stored just 20 miles from their backyard, with the possibility of polluting the aquifer we all depend on. Perhaps by that time, the residents of Nye County will have evacuated the potential wasteland and it will no longer be a concern.
Isn't that so typical? Let's avoid the issue and perhaps it will go away. I do not attribute blame to the Bush administration any more than every administration since the Nevada Test Site first opened for business in 1951. They are all equally to blame, and equally ineffective in their solutions.
W. E. Lopez
Crystal
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Pahrump Valley Times
July 22, 2005
Goedhart Defends Dairy Plans, Addresses Concerns
By Doug McMurdo
PVT
Ponderosa Dairy manager Ed Goedhart took exception to several comments made by Amargosa Valley residents in last week??s part one of our series on Nevada??s largest dairy operation.
In a telephone interview held earlier this week Goedhart lashed out a bit before explaining the dairy operation??s future plans.
??Everybody has a right to their opinion,?? he said in reference to last week??s first installment. ??But nobody has a right to be wrong in their facts.??
Chief among the alleged misstatements regards the cleanliness of the dairy and any health impacts its presence might have on Amargosa Valley residents. ??Somebody untrained says they do a cursory investigation and come to this conclusion (the dairy is harmful),?? Goedhart said. ??The fact is we cooperate with federal and state environmental protection. They consider us very proactive.??
According to state records, the Ponderosa Dairy was the first in Nevada to submit plans to the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection. Comprehensive monitoring of groundwater is routine, and each of the company??s plans and proposals have been approved.
Former Environmental Protection chief Allen Biaggi once publicly praised the operation and considered it a model other Nevada dairies would do well to follow.
??They??re concerned about health impacts??? he said. ??What is that? The Employer Insurance Company of Nevada has never had a claim filed against us, so where??s the health impact???
OSHA, the national job safety inspection agency, is involved in the operation and has never found any serious issues. ??I have yet to see what the health concerns are,?? said an obviously vexed Goedhart.
The Pahrump Dairy and the Ponderosa Dairy are both owned by parent company Rockport. The Pahrump Dairy has been sold to the Focus Group, a major Clark County residential developer. It is moving, but not to Amargosa Valley as was alleged in last week??s edition.
What really bothered Goedhart was the accusation a resident made that compared the Ponderosa Dairy and its activities to the nightmare created by the defunct Preferred Equities Corporation, which built the various Calvada subdivisions in Pahrump beginning in the early 1970s - but failed to install the necessary infrastructure to support the community.
??The Pahrump Dairy has been there for 16 years and has worked out very well in the community, said Goedhart. ??But now it??s within a mile to a mile-and-a-half of the Bob Ruud Community Center, Wal-Mart, Albertson??s, the Cottage Grove and Diamond bar (residential) subdivisions.
??Development in Pahrump is up to the dairy??s very borders. Land values continue to escalate - it??s not fair to be compared to PEC.??
Goedhart said selling the dairy would also free up desperately needed water rights to provide infrastructure. In any case, the Pahrump operation is not moving to Amargosa Valley as some of that community??s residents fear. ??That dairy is going to Arizona,?? he said.
Exception was also taken to the statement the dairy was committing ??social sins.?? ??I??m not sure what they mean,?? he said. ??I??ll have to explore that a little further. We provide 40 to 45 good jobs in Pahrump, but what is good or bad in some people??s minds? My father survived a concentration camp (during World War II) and came to America from Holland. He found a job milking cows and he saw that job as opportunity.??
The much larger Ponderosa Dairy has 140 employees on its payroll.
As for allegations strings were pulled to have Mecca Road improved (not Farm Road as was reported last week), Goedhart said the dairy contributed $140,000 to the better than $300,000 1.5-mile project. The remainder of the funding came from Payments Equal to Taxes, money paid Nye County by the federal government for its use of Yucca Mountain and the proposal to utilize the mountain to store the nation??s high-level radioactive waste.
Goedhart said the dairy operation spends millions of dollars a year on fuel - a portion of such taxes fund Nye County??s Public Works Department - and he also pays fees to have his trucks licensed.
Another complaint centered on dairy trucks driving off the highway and stirring up dust. Goedhart said his trucks are not ??running all over the valley.?? The drivers using the valley??s roads are local farmers bringing their crops to market or supplies to their farms.
One of the more important and controversial accusations concerns the supposed threat the dairy imposes on Amargosa Valley??s groundwater. ??That is pure presupposition,?? he said. ??We have safeguards in place, it??s all part of our comprehensive management plan.?? Goedhart, a former Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board member, left his position after the Ponderosa became the focal point of most town discussions. ??I try to be the best employer I can within my financial means. I try to be community minded.??
As for the rumor the Ponderosa operation would expand to seven dairies, Goedhart said the company is in the process of applying for an Environmental Protection permit to build a dairy - a process that takes at least a year to complete - on the Last Trails Ranch, which has been a cattle operation since 1971. When completed, assuming the permit is granted, the expansion would be roughly the same size as the Pahrump Dairy - 320 acres with 2,400 milking cows. The Ponderosa Dairy is roughly twice that size; and that leads us to the final comment that irked the dairy manager.
A gate was put up on Saddleback Road to keep motorists off dairy property. Locals are upset they can no longer use the path, but Goedhart said he had no choice out of liability concerns. ??According to our legal department, who did a title search, there are no valid easements or encumbrances on the property. Saddleback Gate was put up to keep people from trespassing.??
One thing is certain: Goedhart and his company have millions invested in the Amargosa Valley operation, which supplies most of Nevada and much of California with milk - if residents want to argue about expansion plans, health concerns or road improvements, he would appreciate it if they came armed with facts rather than raw emotion.
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Provo Daily Herald
July 22, 2005
Bennett thwarts House funding for federal lawyers
N.S. Nokkentved DAILY HERALD
The Senate this week may have hampered a federal agency's ability to ensure the safe shipment of highly radioactive waste if it were to be sent to Utah.
Sen. Bob Bennett added a provision to a Senate appropriations bill that would strip funding from the House version that Bennett says would fund a legal battle against Utah's efforts to keep spent fuel out of the state.
"The federal government should not be in the business of mounting legal challenges for a privately owned company," Bennett said.
A House subcommittee earlier this month approved funding for two lawyers for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to oversee legal challenges of safety requirements for shipping spent reactor fuel to Utah.
The Minnesota-based Private Fuel Storage LLC has proposed a private storage facility for highly radioactive spent fuel from commercial power reactors on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley. The 820-acre site would hold 44,000 tons of spent fuel in steel and concrete casks set on concrete pads.
But Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration is not mounting a legal battle to force the waste on Utah, or paying the legal expenses for a private company, said James Wiggens, director of policy and government affairs at the agency.
There seems to be some confusion over the wording in the House bill, he said. The agency, which oversees transportation safety for all kinds of hazardous material, had made the request but the wording got twisted in the editing process, Wiggens said.
"We don't care where it's going, how it's going or when it's going," he said. "Our focus here is just making sure it gets there safely."
Wiggens hopes the confusion can be cleared up in a House-Senate conference committee.
The lawyers would deal with safety issues and legal challenges over whether hazardous material shipments are following safety regulations -- including any shipments to Skull Valley, should the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve a license for the facility.
But it was the specific naming of Skull Valley that bothered Bennett, spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest said. That contradicts administration policy.
"The PHMSA folks are kind of out of sync with the administration," she said.
Bennett and a phalanx of Utah officials, most of whom in the past have supported sending such waste to Nevada, oppose the shipment of spent fuel to Utah.
"I remain firmly opposed to any shipment of spent fuel to the state of Utah and appreciate the administration's recognition that the PFS proposal to do so is contrary to the nation's nuclear waste policy," Bennett said.
The Goshute tribe's efforts to establish a temporary storage site, however, has its roots in the country's nuclear waste policy. The 1987 amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 authorized the establishment of such sites and authorized grants to the tribe to learn about radioactive waste storage.
But before the tribe and the federal government could sign a contract for a storage site in Utah in 1994, Congress pulled the funding for the project. The tribe instead turned to the private company looking for someplace to send its spent fuel.
The ultimate destination for the spent fuel would be the increasingly unlikely federal disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
N.S. Nokkentved can be reached at 344-2930 or at nnokkentved@heraldextra.com.
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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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