Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, September 16, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
September 16, 2005
NRC is told quality comes first on Yucca Mountain work
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department is now more focused on the quality of its Yucca Mountain work than on meeting a specific schedule, department officials told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday.
The department is still working diligently to submit to the NRC an application for a license to construct the underground high-level nuclear waste repository, officials said. They still aim to submit it sometime next year.
But department officials would not give the commission a specific date during a quarterly management meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.
"It's going to be ready when it's done," Acting Yucca Chief Paul Golan told the commission. "A quality organization does things right the first time."
Golan said he is implementing a "trust but verify" culture for the Yucca program. The license application will be independently reviewed within the department before becoming final, Golan said.
The Energy Department is also seeking to organize its massive collection of Yucca research documents in preparation for submission to the NRC. Golan said the documents, too, will be independently assessed.
W. John Arthur, deputy director of the department's Office of Repository Development, said he may recommend certifying -- that is, finalizing -- the documents by the end of the month.
Under commission regulations, the department has to make all its documents related to the project public six months before it can submit the license application. This allows Nevada, the commission, the public and other interested parties to look through the material.
The documents are important because the Energy Department says its research proves that Yucca is a safe place to bury the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste. The NRC is charged with reviewing the massive data collection and determining whether Yucca is safe. The NRC is responsible for licensing, and ultimately regulating, Yucca.
Arthur said the collection contains 3.3 million documents, including about 1.5 million e-mails and about 1 million technical reports and analysis. Only about 1 percent of the documents in the database could be withheld as privileged documents, officials have said.
Other Yucca work continues, Arthur said. The department is continuing to develop a plan for dealing with broken fuel rods that arrive at Yucca after shipping, he said.
Officials are also updating the license application so it complies with the revised Environmental Protection Agency radiation protection rule released last month. Arthur said he did not believe any additional scientific work will be needed for the department to determine whether it can meet the new EPA radiation standard.
The department is also reviewing water infiltration studies because quality assurance documents that back up the research may have been falsified. The department discovered e-mails by U.S. Geological Survey employees in March that suggest Yucca several researchers did not follow proper procedures and "fudged" data, according to the e-mails.
Arthur said it would take at least until next April to finalize the water studies. The studies are important because critics have said water flow inside the mountain could ultimately cause radiation to leak from the repository.
The department agreed to brief the commission on an upcoming review of the e-mail issue and how it may have affect the project, but did not set a date.
Also at Thursday's meeting, the NRC said it has reviewed all 293 "key technical issues" -- a checklist of unanswered questions about Yucca science that department and commission officials have been working to resolve for several years.
Elmo Collins of the commission's Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety said 256 have been "closed" and 29 need additional information.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 16, 2005
Editorial: New Yucca leadership?
Reno Gazette-Journal
Confirmation hearings for the man nominated to head the office that oversees the Yucca Mountain project hardly compares with the Supreme Court justice deliberations for most of the nation. But for Nevadans, the person chosen to do that job could yield critical information about the project. His progress through the confirmation process should be followed closely.
If confirmed as head of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and after the resignation of the Energy Department's Margaret Chu, Edward "Ward" Sproat would be tasked with reinvigorating the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project. In other words, he'd work to get the project back on track. The underground repository that the administration has earmarked to store nuclear waste from the nation's reactors has not been entirely derailed as yet, but it has suffered serious threats through years of opposition from state officials, environmental activists, insufficient safety standards, fraud allegations and several rounds of budget cuts.
Sproat admits -- for now -- that he is unfamiliar with many of the project details. But he has long years of experience as a consultant and successful negotiator for the nuclear industry. He'll likely get up to speed quickly. He is, perhaps, the big gun the administration might have been looking for, hoping finally to push through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and into operation.
Senators who will participate in the confirmation hearings will develop an intimate acquaintance with Sproat, his philosophies, his methods and his mandate. They should not, however, bear the sole responsibility for knowing who this nominee is or how the administration hopes to proceed if he is confirmed. Others who oppose burying thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste near a major population center also should make it their business to know him.
(It will be interesting to see how Nevada senators, who reject the repository, will handle the Sproat hearings and vote. Someone, after all, must fill the position and approving him or anyone else for the job will be akin to choosing an adversary for the state.)
Bob Loux, a major opposition leader, has been quoted as conceding that "the die is cast" and that it matters little who handles the day-to-day operation. Other factors can make the difference in how this project proceeds -- factors the hearings can reveal: Whether he is being sent in as an advocate for safe plant operation, or whether he's just supposed to use any method to get it up and running, for instance. Is the plan for him to eventually negotiate with utilities? And, does the administration think of Nevada as just a nuclear waste dump or do officials really care about the state?
Answers to those questions can be crucial to how the opposition responds at every juncture.
The hearings aren't likely to begin soon or to be as long and involved. Two justices and Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval must face the Senate, along with a long list of other nominees. But when Sproat does come up for confirmation, Nevadans should pay close attention to what the hearings reveal.
Whether the project moves smoothly under Sproat or whether the name of the game for Nevada ultimately must be "delay," the old saw about keeping friends closer and enemies closer applies.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 16, 2005
French, U.S. companies to build nuke power plant
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A French firm with Yucca Mountain ties and a U.S. nuclear company aim to win the race to construct the first new U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly 30 years, despite the nation's problem-plagued nuclear waste plan.
France's state-owned AREVA Inc. -- with a U.S. headquarters in Maryland, 8,000 U.S. employees, and a history of plant construction -- has joined with U.S. nuclear giant Constellation Energy to form the Annapolis, Md.-based UniStar Nuclear, officials announced Thursday.
UniStar would have at least two connections to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project. COGEMA Inc., an AREVA affiliate, won a $29.7 million, 4 1/2-year contract to design material handling systems at Yucca in May 2003.
Also, UniStar would design plants based on AREVA technology, but the reactors would be constructed by Bechtel Power Corp. in this country. The Bechtel family of companies include Bechtel SAIC, an affiliate that is the lead Energy Department contractor at Yucca Mountain. So Bechtel could be involved in constructing new plants -- and constructing the future home of the plant waste.
UniStar aims to create streamlined approach to the expensive and complex proposition of designing, building and licensing new power plants, officials said. They want to market a new generation plant technology powered by a 1,600-megawatt reactor.
Design is nearing completion and a new plant could be "on the grid," by 2015, they said. Investors in the new plants could include other U.S. energy companies.
The announcement of the new venture came five weeks after Congress approved energy legislation laden with fiscal incentives for the nuclear industry.
"With the recent passage of the Energy Policy Act, we now believe the time is right to build nuclear power plants in America," Michael Wallace, co-executive UniStar officer, said.
Nuclear energy officials for several years have said it was time for a U.S. nuclear "renaissance," especially with oil prices on the rise -- and with President Bush and leaders in the GOP-controlled Congress dangling financial incentives in front of the industry. Nuclear plants generate nearly 20 percent of America's electricity without emitting greenhouse gases.
But numerous obstacles have snared the drive to construct new plants, including investor wariness of massive costs and a complicated regulatory maze.
The industry also has battled a public perception that nuclear plants are unsafe since the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in Pennsylvania, although industry leaders have boasted of their safety record since then.
And there's the waste problem. More than 40,000 tons of waste has piled up at both closed plants and at 103 active reactors nationwide since the first commercial nuclear plant began operating in 1957.
The federal government has deemed Yucca Mountain the nation's waste solution, and the Energy Department aims to open the proposed underground high-level waste dump site as early as 2012.
But the program has been beset by budgetary setbacks, delay and scientific controversy, and it continues to face legal challenges from Nevada.
Nuclear industry officials have said in the past that solid progress on Yucca was needed before they could build new plants. But they have softened that rhetoric as it seemed more likely that they could pursue new nuclear plants.
The new venture firmly believes Yucca Mountain is the "best option" as a long-term waste solution, Constellation Energy spokesman Robert Gould said. He said there are alternatives for waste storage until Yucca is complete.
"We need to see a path forward" on Yucca, Gould said. "But we do not see that (Yucca problems) as an impediment."
Nevada lawmakers say that Congress has renewed interest in other alternatives, including continuing to store waste at plants until a better solution than Yucca is developed. There is renewed interest among key lawmakers in recycling waste, they say.
"Yucca is dead -- that's a dirty little secret around here," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in an interview at the Capitol.
The nuclear industry knows that another waste solution would be needed for any new plants, Ensign said. Yucca by law would be designed to hold 77,000 tons of waste and filled to capacity by 2036.
"They (new plants) would need a second Yucca Mountain," Ensign said, arguing that on-site storage and developing waste-recycling technology were better options.
However, Yucca advocates, including its powerful supporters in Congress, say the nation needs Yucca whether it pursues other waste solutions or not.
Nuclear industry critics scoffed at the new venture. Investors know that nuclear power is not a good investment because it reliable or economical, said David Lochbaum, a nuclear power expert with the Union for Concerned Scientists.
He noted that the government underwrites an insurance plan in case of catastrophic plant accidents. He also noted the energy bill included a $200 million incentive for the constructors of a new plant, as well as a promise that taxpayers would pay for construction delays beyond five years.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 16, 2005
Companies plan nuclear power plants
Venture aims for 2008 licensing, which would end decades-long hiatus in United States
By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Twenty-seven years have passed since a business ordered a new nuclear power plant in the United States, but two energy companies Thursday announced a joint venture to seek a license for a new nuclear plant by spring 2008.
Constellation Energy, a Baltimore-based electric company, and Areva, a French-owned nuclear reactor manufacturer, are forming UniStar Nuclear with the goal of launching a new era of nuclear power plants in the United States.
Bechtel Power Corp. would build the new plants.
"Over the past decade, America's energy consumption has grown about 40 times faster than our production," said Michael Wallace, executive vice president of Constellation Energy.
"Nuclear power is the one energy source that is completely domestic, environmentally friendly and able to generate massive amounts of electricity," Wallace said.
Citing a favorable market and helpful provisions in an energy bill recently signed into law by President Bush, Wallace and Areva Chief Executive Officer Thomas Christopher said they hope to start building new nuclear power plants in the United States by 2010 and operating them by 2015.
"For the first time in at least a generation, we will be making large nuclear components for commercial nuclear plants in the United States," Christopher said.
Radioactive waste from the new plants probably would be stored at a repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We believe Yucca Mountain needs to be the ultimate solution to spent fuel high-level waste storage," Wallace said.
But even if a Yucca Mountain repository is not ready, new nuclear power plants would continue to have the options of on-site storage, Wallace said.
Commonwealth Edison was the last company to order a new nuclear power plant, in December 1978 in Carroll County, Ill., a spokesman at the Nuclear Energy Institute said.
The April 1979 partial meltdown of a core reactor at the Three Mile Island power station near Harrisburg, Pa., is cited as the reason new nuclear power plants have not been ordered.
Bob Loux, chief of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, said he is unconcerned about the possibility that new nuclear power plants will increase pressure to open a repository at Yucca Mountain.
"I believe Yucca Mountain is never going to open," Loux said.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 16, 2005
Katrina proved we really are on our own
Doug McMurdo
The only thing that blew harder than the 175-mph winds unleashed by Hurricane Katrina as she crashed into the Gulf Coast Aug. 29 was the hot air that flew from the mouths of our national politicians.
The blame game began before the storm was even done destroying everything in its path.
Republicans shamelessly attacked Democrats. Democrats viciously assailed Republicans. Both sides are full of - golly, I really wish I could spell out a four-letter word here.
If any good will come from this epic tragedy it is this: All Americans now realize once and for all that their government is effective at one thing and one thing only: taxing its middle- to low-income citizens to the brink of starvation.
Republicans and Democrats used Katrina as a springboard to assault one another when they could have been using their influence to save lives.
Members of the Republican Bush family took advantage of the disaster to show the world just how clueless they are to the plight of the common man and woman.
Democrat Senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton solidified her reputation as a woman who, in her heart of hearts, is Cruella DeVille. And all of those highly paid federal bureaucrats - on both sides of the aisle - demonstrated how the depth of their corruptibility is exceeded only by the breadth of their incompetence.
No event in the past 229 years illustrates with such utter clarity how desperately the American voter needs more choices on Election Day.
Katrina's main lesson, however, is that Americans should not depend on Uncle Sam for anything but an outrageous tax bill. There is also the nepotism, cronyism, and party ideology that puts elephants and donkeys above moral duty and common decency, but try telling that to a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan Republican or a delusional Kennedy Democrat.
The simple, irrefutable fact is this: Katrina was going to lay waste to the Gulf Coast regardless of which party had one of its members living in the White House.
Katrina was going to end or disrupt the lives of God-only-knows how many people whether or not the director of FEMA was familiar with basic CPR, much less knew how to draw upon and effectively mobilize thousands of resources in response to the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.
Certainly there is blame to place, but the way our top leaders behaved in the wake of Katrina broke something inside of me, inside all of us.
What else did Katrina churn up and toss out on her devastating path? Well, let's take an inventory:
• The government doesn't care about its poor as much as it does its rich. Duh.
• The old saying "It isn't what you know, it's who you know" still holds true.
• Racism is alive and well in the South - and everywhere else in this land of plenty. Last week a Katrina survivor told me he heard, on television, a white man from Mississippi speak of New Orleans in these terms: "I say we burn all the bridges (out of town) and let the niggers rot."
Who talks like that in 2005? I thought all those people died with my grandparents' generation.
• If you're wondering why hundreds of thousands of people didn't evacuate when they had the chance, wonder no more. They stayed because every year about this time a weather forecaster does his or her job and warns people a storm is brewing in the Gulf and it's time to head for higher ground.
Nine out of 10 times the storm never materializes, but workdays are lost and most people need to be on the job just to pay the bills.
Add to the mix the fact it would cost a minimum-wage earner more than a day's pay to fill up his or her car with today's obscene fuel prices and you've got folks willing to gamble. They just didn't know their lives would be the ante.
• Cities by the sea should not be built below sea level.
• Every man, woman and child in the world should have a 72-hour emergency kit full of water, food, first-aid supplies, flashlight, batteries.
• There are elements of our society that will exploit tragedy. Profiteers, opportunists, looters, call them what you will. By the way, is a woman who takes diapers from a store destroyed by a hurricane a looter or a mother doing her best to care for her baby in a time of absolute crisis? What would you do?
• Expect nothing from the federal government except cover-ups, unfunded mandates, and more cover-ups. And taxes. Lots and lots of taxes.
• Expect much more, however, from your local government - your county commission and town boards - and from your first responders should catastrophe make its way to your doorstep. At least our leaders know we exist.
• Oh, here's one more point to ponder as you slip between the sheets tonight: The same government that failed so miserably in its reaction to Katrina is the very same government that plans to bottle and ship, from 39 states straight to Nye County, 77,000 tons of America's high-level radioactive waste - the deadliest substance on the planet.
Sleep tight.
Write to Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com.
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Provo Daily Herald
September 16, 2005
Fail-safe?
N.S. Nokkentved
Daily Herald
Parts of the lead shielding may start to melt and seals may fail, but an extreme fire would not cause the release of any significant amount of radioactive material from the casks that would bring highly radioactive waste to a proposed storage site in Utah.
So says a new study by safety experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that looked at what would happen to the casks used to ship spent reactor fuel if they were subjected to a fire, such as the one in the Baltimore railroad tunnel in July 2001.
This is a "what if" study, said Earl Easton, a senior advisor in the NRC's spent fuel project office.
The results contradict an earlier study by a radioactive waste watchdog group.
The NRC study covered three kinds of shipping casks, including the kind that will likely be used to ship spent fuel through Utah County should a proposed storage facility at the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley become a reality.
That project became more likely after the NRC approved a license for the facility last week.
The NRC safety study used a computer model based on data from actual fires, including the Baltimore tunnel fire, which burned for several days.
The study showed no spent fuel would be released from the casks.
The odds of such a fire involving radioactive waste would be one in five trillion rail miles traveled, Easton said.
But a 2002 report by Matthew Lamb and Marvin Resnikoff of Radioactive Waste Management Associates estimated that had the train in the Baltimore tunnel carried spent fuel, such as that bound for Skull Valley or Yucca Mountain, nearly 400,000 area residents would have been exposed to radiation.
The resulting exposure would have resulted in 5,000 to 32,000 related cancer deaths within 50 years.
And if either facility in Utah or Nevada were to open, hundreds of such shipments would be rolling through communities across the country each year for 24 to 38 years, the report said.
Easton, however, took issue with Lamb and Resnikoff's assumptions that may be outdated and rely on cask deformation from a severe impact.
"We don't think these apply," Easton said. The Baltimore fire did not involve any severe impact. Incidents that involve impact and fire have been the subject of other studies, he said.
The type of cask likely to hold spent fuel bound for Skull Valley, the Holtec Hi-Star 100, would be the least likely of the casks tested to leak, he said.
The computer model showed the hottest part of the fire would be about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
After seven hours at that temperature, the inside of the cask still would be well below the temperature at which the fuel rods would break down, Easton said.
The fuel rods would be inside a stainless steel canister welded shut, which in turn would be inside the shipping cask that consists of 10 inches of multiple layers of metal.
A nine-inch lid would be secured with bolts tightened 10 to 15 times as tight as the lug nuts on a car.
The weak link is the seals between the lid and the cask. On two types of casks the seals failed, and the model showed a small amount of radioactive contamination -- known to experts as "crud" -- could leak out.
"We don't believe that this would pose any significant danger to first responders," Easton said. If one person were exposed to all of it, it would result in a third of the allowed exposure of 500 millirem per year for first responders -- about the same as an X-ray.
On the Hi-Star 100, the seal is metal and less likely to fail at the tested temperatures, Easton said.
In addition, the metal covering on the fuel rods and the inner canister would remain intact.
"We don't expect any spent fuel to come out of that," he said.
N.S. Nokkentved can be reached at 344-2930 or at nnokkentved@heraldextra.com.
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 16, 2005
Waste casks stand up to searing flames' heat
Model safe: Computers show containers would securely store nuclear waste bound for Utah
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - Even in a large-scale fire, the containers that would be used to ship and store nuclear waste to Private Fuel Storage's proposed waste site in Utah would not rupture, according to a study by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The NRC used computer models to look at how three types of casks withstood a fire with temperatures reaching 1,800 degrees. One was the Holtec Hi-Star 100, which Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of electric utilities, plans to use to ship waste to a temporary storage site on the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes reservation about 45 miles west of Salt Lake City.
The intense heat did not affect the Holtec cask, said Earl Easton of the NRC's Spent Fuel Project Office and a senior adviser on transportation issues.
The heat, however, would break down seals on two other types of casks tested, creating a possibility that cobalt deposits could flake off the fuel rods and escape, although Easton said if that did occur, exposures would be less than received in an X-ray.
Neither of those casks would be used for PFS shipments, although they could be used for transport to the proposed Yucca Mountain waste dump.
Experts who have studied cask safety as part of Nevada's opposition to Yucca Mountain dispute the findings, and argue that the NRC should subject the casks to real-life tests rather than digital models.
“The bottom line is this: All their analysis is based on computer simulations and questionable assumptions. I don't believe their conclusions are correct, based on the analyses we've done,’ said Bob Halstead, transportation adviser for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, which is resisting Yucca Mountain.
“If they're so confident of the performance of these casks, why do they refuse to submit them to full scale tests?’ asked Halstead.
But Easton said that sometimes computer models impose an even higher safety standard on the casks than simply testing to see if they would survive being dropped or burned.
“Full-scale testing of casks is not always the magic bullet people think it to be,’ he said.
The NRC is soliciting comment on the draft report on the cask study, Easton said.
PFS, which last week received NRC approval for its license to store the waste in Utah, proposes shipping about 200 casks by rail each year to the facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation - 44,000 tons in all - using the Holtec Hi-Star 100 cask.
The cask has a welded steel canister that holds the fuel rods, which is then put inside another reinforced steel casing.
The 17-foot-high, 8-foot in diameter casks would then be stood on end on concrete pads on 100-acres of the reservation.
In previous rulings, the NRC determined the casks could withstand an array of calamities, from earthquake to wildfire to a crash from an F-16 fighter jet.
The NRC study was prompted by a 2001 fire in a Baltimore rail tunnel, started when train cars carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and ignited. It burned for three days with temperatures estimated as hot as 1,800 degrees.
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New York Times
September 16, 2005
Editorial: The Nuclear Waste Site in Utah
We remain hopeful that Yucca can qualify as a permanent disposal site. But if Yucca fails to pass muster with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nation will need a centralized surface site to fill the gap until a safe burial location can be found. The Indian reservation in Utah can fill that purpose.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 15, 2005
NRC: Casks would survive big blaze
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Transportation casks carrying used nuclear fuel would survive a fire similar to one in a Baltimore train tunnel four years ago, according to additional analysis by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that is to be published in the Federal Register.
The 2001 train fire prompted critics of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump to point to the potential dangers associated with moving spent nuclear fuel by train across the country to Yucca Mountain.
The train cars in the Baltimore tunnel carried hazardous materials, but no nuclear waste.
Nevada officials and other Yucca critics believe a similar fire could cause casks to break and lead to a release of high-level radioactivity. They call for full-scale testing a casks used to move the waste to Yucca, if it were to open, and tougher regulations for casks to be approved suitable for shipping.
In an analysis completed earlier this month, the NRC found that a fire similar to the Baltimore Tunnel fire would not cause a release of spent nuclear fuel particles nor fission products from a three types of shipping casks it studied.
The NRC found that one type of cask would release a small amount of residue found on a fuel assembly, but nothing significant.
The NRC report used data from the National Transportation Safety Board and assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The 78-page draft will be available for public comment and a final version will be released after the comments are evaluated, the NRC says.
The commission released a report in January 2003 that analyzed only one cask in certain scenarios and also found no radiation would be released.
Commission regulations require a cask to be designed to withstand a fully engulfing fire lasting no less than 30 minutes, with an average flame temperature of no less than 1,475 degrees, according to the report.
But in another 2001 study also completed for Nevada by Matthew Lamb and Marvin Resnikoff of Radioactive Waste Management Associates showed an analysis of a 1,600-degree fire burning for five days would result in a radiological release.
Joe Strolin, of planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the bottom line is that full-scale tests need to be done on the casks that will be used at Yucca to know for sure what they can withstand.
"This should not be just public relations tests either," Strolin said.
All other tests, for the state and for NRC, have been done with computer models.
Resnikoff continues to work on updating the calculations used in the report, and UNR Mechanical Engineering Department Professor Miles Greiner is studying other "high intensity" accidents and their effects on casks, Strolin said.
The nuclear industry says that more than 3,000 spent fuel shipments have taken place in the last 40 years with no radioactive releases, deaths or injuries.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 15, 2005
Porter committee gets 4,980 more pages in probe
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department delivered an additional 4,980 pages to Rep. Jon Porter's subcommittee Wednesday, to fulfill requirements of a subpoena related to Porter's investigation into possible falsified documents at the Yucca Mountain project.
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., issued the subpoena in Jury for 10 sets of documents. The Energy Department delivered some documents by the July 22 deadline but has sporadically turned over documents since then, including 700 pages Friday.
In March the department announced it discovered e-mails sent between U.S. Geological Survey employees that suggest water studies at Yucca may not be correct. Water flow studies are key to determining the mountain's success in protecting people from radiation.
Porter is chairman of the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization subcommittee, which is examining e-mails and alleged mismanagement at the Energy Department's proposed high-level nuclear waste repository.
Wednesday's compilation included documents involving the potential falsification of documents the department did not originally give the subcommittee and employee records on Joseph Hevesi, Alan Flint and Lorraine Flint, the scientists who wrote the bulk of the e-mails in question.
Porter also received a list of the water infiltration models from 1997 to present and correspondence between the department and the project's main contractor Bectel SAIC regarding the e-mails.
The subcommittee has still not received the department's draft license application that it must submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval before construction of the repository can begin. The draft is one of the 10 requested items.
Department spokesman Craig Stevens said the department will make more documents available to the committee as it compiles them.
Porter said the department is either not capable of finding the draft application or is withholding documents.
"It actually scares me either way," Porter said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 15, 2005
DOE denies budget cuts single out Yucca geologists
U.S. Geological Survey expects big work reduction at repository
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is not singling out federal geologists for budget cuts in its planned Yucca Mountain spending for next year, a spokesman said Wednesday.
All contractors for the nuclear waste project are being scrutinized as the DOE forms work goals, spokesman Allen Benson said.
"There may be reductions for some and there may not be reductions for some, it all depends on the scope of work," Benson said.
Officials at the U.S. Geological Survey said they have been told to expect an 89 percent reduction in its work at the proposed nuclear waste repository in the 2006 fiscal year. The cutbacks would force layoffs and could drive the agency off the project, they said.
The USGS supplies scientists to the Energy Department for specific research and monitoring tasks. The agency has conducted nuclear waste-related examinations at Yucca Mountain since 1979.
The deep reductions have drawn attention in part because they have been proposed just months after the discovery of Yucca Mountain e-mails written by several USGS hydrologists.
In the messages, composed between 1998 and 2000, the scientists write of disgruntlement and frustration and mention the possibility of falsifying quality assurance documentation of their work.
The e-mails embarrassed DOE and USGS officials and have caused frictions in the bureaucracies. A House subcommittee and inspectors from the Energy Department and the Interior Department continue to investigate the messages.
The episode also has contributed to Yucca Mountain delays. DOE officials have said they will not seek a repository license until the matter is closed.
Asked if there was a connection between the proposed USGS budget cuts and the e-mails, Benson said, "No comment."
Benson said the Energy Department routinely reviews needs for each budget, which affects all Yucca Mountain participants, including national laboratories in California and New Mexico that contribute to the repository effort.
"We are not singling out USGS. All our participants are undergoing the same review," Benson said.
He wouldn't discuss internal numbers affecting other contractors.
Since 1983, the Energy Department has funded USGS $379 million for research, Benson said. Spending levels have decreased as the project has shifted its focus from on-site studies to repository licensing.
Congress has not set a Yucca Mountain budget level for the 2006 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The Bush administration has requested $651 million, but lawmakers are not expected to pass an Energy Department appropriation bill until later this fall.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 15, 2005
Panel gets 4,980 documents in e-mail probe
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy said it delivered 4,980 pages of information Wednesday to a congressional panel investigating whether Yucca Mountain documents have been falsified.
The documents include personnel records of three hydrologists tied to e-mail messages that mention document falsification on the nuclear waste project, a DOE official said.
The department produced additional records related to the possible fabrications, as well as communications on the matter between DOE and Bechtel SAIC, the project's management firm.
Lists of water infiltration research conducted by the hydrologists and others at the Yucca site also were delivered, according to DOE spokesman Craig Stevens.
Stevens said DOE officials sent the pages to Congress as they continue to comply with a subpoena issued in July by the House Government Reform Committee.
A subcommittee headed by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., is investigating allegations raised by the e-mails that quality assurance documentation of certain water infiltration research may have been fudged.
Joseph Hevesi, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist who was a primary author of the e-mails, testified before Congress in June he did not falsify documents and any mention of it was not meant to be taken seriously.
The Energy Department delivered personnel records for Hevesi and for Alan and Lorraine Flint, married USGS hydrologists also identified as authors of some messages.
Porter "is encouraged, but he is still waiting for the rest," spokesman T.J. Crawford said.
Porter and the Energy Department remain at loggerheads over a subcommittee demand for a copy of a draft license application for the proposed repository.
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Nevada Appeal
September 14, 2005
Poor assumptions by nuclear commission
Nevada Appeal editorial board
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to allow nuclear-waste storage in western Utah probably won't have a direct effect on Yucca Mountain, but there were several disturbingly familiar assumptions made in the process.
The deal to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is between a private company and a sovereign tribe, two big factors to distinguish the site in Skull Valley from the Nevada site at Yucca Mountain.
The Skull Valley facility also calls for above-ground storage and is being called temporary, until the U.S. Department of Energy establishes a permanent repository in Southern Nevada. So it's being developed as something of a way station for waste en route to Nevada.
The first issue is the apparent disregard for the wishes of the state of Utah, where leaders are as adamant about keeping nuclear waste out of their state as are Nevada's leaders. That the nuclear industry and Goshute tribe can consummate such a deal may be legal - although we have our doubts there, too - but it doesn't stand up in the court of public opinion.
People don't want nuclear waste stored in their back yard - anywhere. That is why the nuclear industry wants to ship it to places like Nevada and Utah. Fewer people, they think, fewer problems.
But that is where a second fallacy arises. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission apparently has accepted the idea that it is safe to ship nuclear waste across the country. Whether by truck or by rail, such an undertaking not only would expose the radioactive waste to terrorist threats, but also would expose many communities to the potential of a nuclear accident that don't now face such a risk.
Finally, there is the concept of one central site as the answer to nuclear storage.
The nuclear industry claims it is better to have one site than 60-plus, where waste is now stored near nuclear plants.
Such logic ignores the fact that all nuclear plants must continue to operate secure storage facilities while the waste awaits shipment.
All the Skull Valley option seems to prove is that it is more feasible to store waste above ground where it is produced than to ship it across the country to either Utah or Nevada.
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 15, 2005
Guv calls feds out on waste
Huntsman won't let nuclear dump go in without a fight
By Rebecca Walsh and Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
With the prospect of highly radioactive waste crossing Utah's borders, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. talked tough Monday.
Huntsman plans to push federal legislation, pester President Bush and his Cabinet and appeal to federal court over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's license for a nuclear storage site on an Indian reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
"This is the most reckless thing I have ever heard our [federal] government wanting to do in this state," Huntsman said in an interview. "If I have to stand in front of the train coming across the border, I'm prepared to do that."
Two previous governors opposed a consortium of eight nuclear power companies' plan to store up to 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes reservation in Tooele County. And after eight years of wrangling - in Congress and before the commission - Huntsman faces the prospect of trying to finish the fight.
The governor did not detail many specifics of his plan. He has asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to "unilaterally cancel the lease." He supports U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's legislation requiring on-site storage of the waste at the nuclear power plants that produce it. He has raised the possible threat of a terrorist attack on the site with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. And he believes a court appeal will "ensure that nothing happens imminently."
Huntsman has determined trainloads of used nuclear fuel rods will not enter the state on his watch.
"There isn't [another] issue as important as this one as far as I'm concerned," Huntsman said. "We need something that closes this off other than just by legal means. We are talking about a public-policy fix. But it is premature to say what that magic bullet could be."
Right now, the most public sign of the state's fight likely will be in court - with a challenge to the NRC's licensing decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver or Washington.
Dianne Nielson, director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said the state is looking forward to pressing its case in federal court, which is the next step for challenging any final NRC decision.
"We think it will be a less biased forum," Nielson said. "We're prepared and expected to be in court."
In addition to securing funding for the legal fight from the Legislature, the state is continuing its work with the public-private Nuclear Opposition (NO!) Coalition.
"They have not met for a long time, but they are still a force," she said.
Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin said it was no surprise the state would appeal the license. Martin said PFS was surprised by the wording in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' statement last week that nuclear waste storage "requires thorough scrutiny."
"The first thing that came to my mind is: 'What has the past eight years been about, if it hasn't been about intense scrutiny?' " she said.
"The state of Utah has represented its citizens well by raising all of the tough questions that have been the topic of many hours of hearings before the [NRC]. All of those questions have been addressed to the satisfaction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
But the governor figures the public opposition of LDS Church leaders can't hurt the state's case. Still, he has no plans to involve the church officially in the battle.
"Just the fact that they have taken a position on it will resonate with many both in state and out," Huntsman said.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Health Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL), met with the governor to talk strategy Monday.
He said Huntsman stressed the importance of building alliances with the state of Nevada and others.
Keeping high-level nuclear waste out of Utah appears to be one of the governor's top priorities, Groenewold said.
"He's not taking it lightly," he added. "Clearly he wants to fight this thing with everything he's got."
Tribune reporter Matt Canham contributed to this report.
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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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