Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
September 21, 2005
Utah senator: Yucca 'does not make sense'
Bennett formerly approved of site
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, once a strong supporter of the proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, announced a surprising change of heart on Tuesday, arguing that the nation should rethink Yucca Mountain.
His speech marked the first significant defection of a Senate Yucca supporter.
"However much the idea of a single repository may have made sense decades ago, it is now clear that it does not make sense, and we need to move in some future direction," Bennett said in a Senate speech.
Bennett essentially advocated abandoning the nation's nuclear waste strategy set in motion by Congress in 1983 -- the ambitious, $58 billion plan to bury the nation's most radioactive waste in an underground repository. Congress in 1987 chose Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the best site.
While the nuclear industry pressured lawmakers to support Yucca, Nevada political leaders have long argued that it was better to leave waste where it currently sits, at the nation's nuclear power plants. They also have advocated investing in waste reprocessing technology used by other nations to recycle waste.
Bennett sided with the Nevadans on both points. He did not unveil legislation but said he aimed to work with Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., toward those goals.
"And to those who had the vision long ago, who have earned the right to say to the rest of us, 'I told you so,' I say I will be happy to join with you, too, to see how we can think this thing through and get the best solution for our nation."
There may be a useful purpose for Yucca Mountain, but not as a waste repository, Bennett said. The nation should try to "retain some of the investment we have made there," Bennett said.
"I am not one who thinks we ought to just fill Yucca Mountain up with dirt and walk away and leave it," he said.
The effect on other senators of Bennett's about-face was not immediately known.
But Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Senate support for Yucca is eroding. Ensign said other senators have told him they do not think Yucca Mountain will ever open because of all the problems associated with it, although they are not saying it publicly yet.
"We are talking about the same solution, and that is keeping it on site," Ensign said. "We've been talking about this for a long time."
The Energy Department has spent about $7 billion on Yucca research, including a research tunnel. But the underground repository has not been constructed.
Domenici, who has long been an advocate of both Yucca and reprocessing, was coy when asked about Bennett's speech and about Yucca's future.
"Yucca Mountain must remain alive," Domenici told the Sun. When asked why, Domenici said, "Yucca Mountain must remain alive -- quote me right."
When pressed for clarification, Domenici smiled and said, "I didn't say what it (Yucca) should be."
When asked if it should be a waste repository, a laughing Domenici ducked into an elevator and said, "It should remain alive. You write what you want about what that means."
Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, long a strident Yucca supporter, said Bennett's new stance can be attributed to fears about a ruling this week by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that voted to license a temporary nuclear waste dump in Utah.
Many consider the interim site as a stepping stone to Yucca. Indeed, Bennett on Tuesday argued that it was not wise to ship waste from plants to what amounts to another above-ground temporary waste site.
Craig said, "The bottom line is, we need both: Yucca Mountain and reprocessing."
When asked if there is still broad support for Yucca Mountain in the Senate, Craig said, "To my knowledge there is, yes."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who like Bennett has been a Yucca advocate, also hinted that his support is wavering. He said he was considering other approaches to dealing with the nation's waste.
"I never had a lot of support for it (Yucca)," Hatch said. "I've never felt good about voting for Yucca Mountain."
Hatch and Bennett in 2002 struck a deal with the White House to support Yucca in exchange for White House opposition to the temporary Utah site. But the NRC approved the Utah site, and the project's nuclear utility company backers are pressing ahead, despite Utah leaders who vow to continue fighting it.
Hatch said the nation's best option for nuclear waste is reprocessing.
"Even if Yucca Mountain became a reality, and it may never become such, it's full the day it opens," Hatch said, referring to Yucca's 77,000-ton capacity.
Nevada lawmakers heartily cheered Bennett's speech.
Momentum is shifting in Congress to finding a waste alternative to Yucca, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said.
"I have spent 20 years fighting the absurd idea that massive quantities of deadly nuclear waste can be transported across thousands of miles," Reid said. "I look forward to joining forces with Sen. Bennett as we work to protect our states, the West and the nation."
Bennett said his new stance was a "win-win situation for all."
"Nevada can get some value out of the investment that has been made in Yucca Mountain if we think it through carefully," he said. "The nation can get additional power without the greenhouse gas effects that comes from fossil fuels and we can ultimately solve the problems of nuclear waste with reprocessing."
Reprocessing waste involves recovering uranium and plutonium from waste, which is actually spent nuclear fuel rods. The nation has not pursued reprocessing largely due to fears that plutonium could end up in the hands of terrorists, who could convert it into weapons.
But Bennett downplayed the risks associated with reprocessing waste.
"We do not to run the risk of having weapons-grade plutonium in the hands of private entities," Bennett said. "We want to be sure that the government controls that."
Bennett joined Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who last week voiced support for legislation being planned by Reid and Ensign that would keep waste at power plants.
Bishop spokesman Scott Parker said much of what Reid has been saying about Private Fuel Storage makes sense: "Don't bring it out West." Parker said Bishop supports on-site storage and reprocessing.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 21, 2005
NRC advisory panel studies Yucca issues
By Launce Rake
<lrake@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
The controversial e-mails that cast doubt on some Yucca Mountain research, plus ongoing tests to check that research, were among the issues discussed Tuesday at a meeting of an advisory committee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Energy Department's efforts to have the NRC license Yucca Mountain as a high-level nuclear waste dump suffered a black eye in March with the discovery of e-mails by U.S. Geological Survey employees that suggest several Yucca researchers did not follow proper procedures and may have "fudged" data.
The studies are important because critics have said water flow inside the mountain could ultimately cause radiation to leak from the repository.
Russell Dyer, Department of Energy assistant deputy director, told the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste on Tuesday that his department is conducting a "root-cause analysis" on what happened with the flawed Geological Survey process. The analysis should be completed in mid-October, he said.
Doug Weaver, a Bechtel Corp. contractor working on the Yucca project through the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said the Energy Department is moving forward on 20 testing procedures. Most of the tests have to do with the contentious issue of how much water moves through the Yucca Mountain rock, and how fast. Water could corrode the canisters designed to hold the radioactive waste.
Among the tests already under way, he told the advisory committee, is monitoring of the precipitation in the desert area to get an idea of how much water is normally in the soil; monitoring of seepage into the testing "drifts," or testing tunnels already bored into the mountain rock; monitoring of seismic activity at the site; and numerous other technical test programs.
The advisory committee also took testimony from Jeff Ciocco, senior project manager for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's division of repository safety. The NRC is working on a five-step, 18-month process to ensure that its evaluation of the Department of Energy's safety standards are sufficient, he said.
"We're going to plan, we're going to implement, we're going to control and we're going to track," Ciocco said of the NRC's supervision of the process.
The Energy Department may have received a boost last month when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed two-tier radiation standard for the repository. One tier would maintain the 15-millirem standard for up to 10,000 years, and the other would allow exposure of up to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years.
Yucca opponents say there is no reason the radiation limit should increase so drastically.
Energy Department officials told the advisory committee that they are updating their license application so it reflects the new proposed radiation standards -- which would have to be implemented by the NRC -- while it continues to review the work of the U.S. Geological Survey scientists.
Dyer told the advisory group that the "science and design work for the license application is technically sound and supports robust safety analyses ... through 10,000 years."
The agency is working to update the application for the million-year standard, he said.
Michael Ryan, advisory committee chairman, said the meetings in Las Vegas are important to take comments from people in the state. He said the committee has heard of the controversy surrounding the U.S. Geological Survey scientists in earlier meetings, but this is the first time the issue has been discussed by the committee in Las Vegas.
He said discussion of the proposed EPA million-year radiation standard came out before the committee's meeting last month, but this is the first meeting of the group to more fully explore the issue.
The radiation standard is scheduled to be discussed at the second day of the committee's three-day sojourn in Las Vegas today. Among the topics is a discussion of how the climate could affect the Yucca Mountain dump over the next million years.
"We're really interested to hear that," Ryan said.
Time also is scheduled for the public to comment on Yucca Mountain issues.
The five-person Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste is made up of scientists and engineers with backgrounds in radioactive waste management, chemistry, geology and related issues.
The committee meets once a year in Las Vegas to take comments from people in the community.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 21, 2005
Change of Heart: Yucca Mountain foes gain ally
Utah GOP senator withdraws support for permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada
By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A Utah senator on Tuesday announced he is withdrawing support for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said the waste should remain at nuclear power plants until other disposal methods are developed.
Bennett cited a recent decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license an interim storage facility in Skull Valley, Utah, as one of the reasons he no longer will support the Yucca Mountain Project, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"If it does not make sense for us to take this nuclear waste and put it in a permanent repository, which is what Yucca Mountain is, why does it make sense to put it in an interim repository that does not have the safeguards that are built into Yucca Mountain?" Bennett said on the Senate floor.
After years of being isolated in their opposition to the Yucca Mountain Project, Nevada's senators described Bennett's statement as evidence that time may be on their side.
"The momentum is shifting and the timing is right to address our nuclear waste challenges in a way that offers real, long-term solutions," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he is hopeful Utah's other senator, Republican Orrin Hatch, also will oppose Yucca Mountain.
In 2002, Ensign thought he had convinced Bennett and Hatch to oppose President Bush's designation of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.
On the eve of the vote, however, the Utah senators were summoned to the White House for a meeting with then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and ended up voting for the Yucca Mountain Project.
"Obviously, they have this issue in their state now, and that may make a difference," Ensign said.
Bennett said he does not want nuclear waste in Utah. He noted Skull Valley is near land used by F-16 jets for bombing practice.
But Bennett also said he is now convinced Yucca Mountain is not going to be available for nuclear waste storage.
"Senator Reid and Senator Ensign have the right to tell the rest of us, 'I told you so,' as it now becomes clear that legally and practically, Yucca Mountain is not going to become the single repository for nuclear waste," Bennett said. "And we need to start thinking about new strategies and new places to deal with this."
Bennett emphasized he remains a strong supporter of nuclear power, which he said is here to stay.
But he said the radioactive waste from reactors at nuclear power plants should remain on site, "until we can work out the economics and the technology of reprocessing if it is the right approach."
Calls to the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Department of Energy were not returned.
Bob Loux, chief of Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency, welcomed Bennett's opposition to the project and said it could lead to a Western coalition against the Yucca Mountain repository.
Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both D-Calif., also oppose the proposed storage site for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.
"There is more Yucca Mountain legislation yet to come, and having the support of Senator Bennett and others could be very helpful," Loux said.
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KVBC
September 21, 2005
Yucca Project Loses Support
A Utah senator says he no longer supports the Yucca Mountain Repository. Senator Bob Bennett says nuclear waste should remain at individual nuclear power plants until better disposal methods are developed.
Bennett originally backed the Yucca Mountain Project, but changed his tune after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed an interim storage site in his home state of Utah. Senator Harry Reid says that Bennet's change of heart shows that momentum is shifting and support for Yucca is on the decline.
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Pahrump Valley Times
Sepember 21, 2005
Yucca Mountain e-mail investigation continues
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Energy Department said it turned over more than 700 pages of additional documents Friday subpoenaed by a congressional panel investigating allegations of paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project in Nevada.
But a spokesman for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who is pursuing the investigation, said the department still has not handed over some key items the panel is seeking. Among them: a draft of the license application the department will submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to get permission to open the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"The stuff that we got today, it wasn't a whole lot. We know they have a lot more they haven't given us," said Chad Bungard, deputy staff director and chief counsel for the congressional panel Porter chairs.
Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said the department has sought to respond to the House Government Reform Committee subpoena.
"As more information is assembled that is responsive to the request, we will provide it," Stevens said.
Porter's panel, a subcommittee of the 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.
In July, when the Energy Department declined to turn over papers he requested, Porter had them subpoenaed.
The Energy Department turned over one large batch of papers later in July. Friday's batch was the second. Stevens said the new documents included glossaries and organizational charts.
Porter's probe has been quiet during the August congressional recess, but Bungard said another hearing would be scheduled soon.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 21, 2005
Caliente Corridor discussed in Goldfield
Officials Outnumber Residents at 'Hot' Meeting
Heidi J. Bertolino
Special to The PVT
The long anticipated meeting between the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and Esmeralda and Nye county residents was a mellow one on Sept 13 - despite rumblings the federal officials would be "rode out of town on a rail."
The Department was in Goldfield with Bureau of Land Management and state employees to explain and collect comments on the draft environmental assessment on the Caliente Corridor, otherwise known as the proposed rail route that would be used to transport the nation's high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain.
The final document is in support of a proposed land order that would protect the proposed 308,600 acres of public land for 10-20 years from surface disturbance and new mining claims. The mile-wide corridor is being considered for the construction of a railroad to haul spent nuclear fuel from Caliente to the Yucca Mountain Repository near Amargosa Valley.
The withdrawal is necessary so the Energy Department can study the corridor and choose a final route for the proposed railroad.
Yucca Mountain, BLM and state representatives outnumbered the public in attendance at any given time. Residents who asked serious questions related to the proposed railroad, not addressed in the draft environmental assessment, were told their worries would be answered in the Rail Alignment Environmental Impact Statement, which has yet to be released.
According to representatives from the various offices, the comments collected in written and verbal form will be collected and assessed for preparation of the final environmental assessment. Currently, the department has until the end of December until its temporary withdrawal expires. When the final document is prepared it will be issued to the Department of the Interior, which manages the Bureau of Land Management.
Then the assistant secretary can issue a federal land order for withdrawal of the public lands from 10-20 years. According to the draft, the DOE would prefer a 10 year withdrawal, as opposed to the previously sought after 20 year withdrawal.
According to the document, livestock grazing and existing valid mining claims will not be affected, nor would recreation. The document said all of the department's activities in the corridor, during the 10-20 year withdrawal period would be considered "casual use," such as surveying and mapping and would not disturb any of the cultural, historic or natural resources in the mile wide corridor.
Only new and future mining claims and surface disturbance will not be allowed under the land order, if it is issued.
Allen Benson, manager of Communications for the Office of Repository Development, said the Rail Alignment EIS would draw a much bigger crowd than the discussion on Tuesday. He said the process that includes the assessment of the land withdrawal is exactly like it would be if a highway was being built. He also said the rail impact statement would address the actual route of the proposed railroad within that mile-wide corridor, and the possible ramifications to the environment and citizens nearby. The current assessment only addresses the ramifications of the department's "casual use" of the land.
According to Benson the information brought forth in the Rail Alignment EIS would produce a record of decision. When the final route for the train is designated, the department can then apply for a railroad right of way, which includes 200-feet off the centerline of the track, and not the mile-wide corridor that could be withdrawn.
It is expected that when the formal right-of-way is issued the land order would become unnecessary. The department expects to complete all preliminary work in the mile-wide corridor in 10 years.
Esmeralda County Commissioners and Nye County Commissioners took turns asking questions and relating information to the representatives present. Esmeralda County Commissioner Bill Kirby sat down with Benson and reminded him the commissioners had signed a resolution that requested the DOE look at an alternative route, not currently listed, in Esmeralda County.
The commission proposed route is more westerly, and according to commissioners would not impact the Goldfield Mining District to the degree it might if the railroad is built in the current corridor. Benson said the DOE would have to apply for a land withdrawal of that proposed stretch if it wanted to seriously consider the land.
The commission suggested westerly route is supposedly addressed in the upcoming rail alignment impact statement but has yet to be withdrawn for study and surveying. Benson said the contents of the draft statement for the rail alignment would not be ready until at least spring of 2006.
The Caliente Corridor travels through large portions of Lincoln and Nye counties and barely turns into and then out of Esmeralda County. Among the alternatives is one route that will butt up against the Esmeralda County line, without entering the county. If the department chooses this route it would leave Esmeralda County out of the current three-county stake holder's financial pie. With the exception of Caliente, the community of Goldfield sits the closest to the proposed rail route at four miles. Esmeralda County is also the least prepared to respond to a large-scale emergency. Beatty is also within 10 miles of the corridor and proposed railroad.
Written comments on the draft environmental assessment for the Caliente Corridor land withdrawal can be sent to Mr. Lee Bishop, Office of National Transportation, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy, 1551 Hillshire Drive, M/S 011, Las Vegas, NV 89134 or faxed to 1-800-967-0739 until Tuesday's deadline.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 21, 2005
Nuclear industry exec picked to head project
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - A nuclear industry executive from Pennsylvania has been picked to direct plans for a national nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
Edward "Ward" Sproat was named Thursday by President Bush to head the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversees development of the Yucca Mountain project and a system to transport nuclear waste to the site from commercial power reactors and federal plants.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Sproat will be expected to reinvigorate a program where recent technical and legal setbacks have pushed back a projected opening from 2010 to 2012 or later.
The Yucca project has been headed by interim leaders since Margaret Chu resigned as director in February.
Sproat is managing partner of a consulting firm, McNeil, Sproat & Associates, in Berwyn, Pa. He has held executive posts at Exelon Corp., the nation's largest nuclear operator, and PECO Energy, the largest utility in Pennsylvania.
Industry officials said Sproat is well known as the lead negotiator in a nuclear waste settlement that Exelon completed with DOE in 2004. DOE agreed to pay Exelon for keeping used nuclear fuel at its power reactors until the Yucca repository could be opened about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
In turn, Exelon agreed to drop lawsuits charging DOE with breach of contract for failing to meet a 1998 deadline to have a repository ready to accept spent fuel.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade association, applauded the nomination, saying Sproat's "nuclear project managerial experience should serve him well in his new position."
"We expect the project will continue to move forward in the licensing process under Ward Sproat's leadership," NEI spokeswoman Trish Conrad said.
Nevada officials who monitor the Yucca project said they knew little of the nominee.
Bob Loux, who coordinates the state's official opposition, said it matters little who directs Yucca Mountain day by day because it has support from the nuclear industry and higher-ups in the Bush administration.
"I think the die is cast relative to Yucca Mountain," Loux said, adding, "You can't alter the fact they have a bad site, and that is not going to change.
"On the other hand," Loux continued, "if he is coming at it from the experience of negotiating with DOE, maybe that is an indicator he is going to move the department to the direction of settling with the utilities."
The nomination will be considered by the Energy Committee before going to the Senate itself.
"Any nominee will face tough questions moving through the hearing process," said Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a repository critic who closely watches the project.
Bush and Congress picked the Yucca site in 2002 as the site to bury 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive commercial, industrial and military waste now stored at sites in 39 states. Funding and problems including a controversy over possible paperwork fraud on the project have delayed the opening date.
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Pahrump Valley Times
September 21, 2005
New radiation safety standards for Yucca
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - An Environmental Protection Agency official defended proposed new radiation safety standards for a planned federal nuclear waste repository in Nevada, calling them the most stringent in the nation.
"We ensure that Yucca Mountain is as safe as any other disposal system that could be developed," said Elizabeth Cotsworth, director of the EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air.
Cotsworth delivered a presentation Monday to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board in Washington, D.C. The board is a branch of the National Academies of Sciences, which monitors the Yucca Mountain project.
"We are proposing to protect public health up to a million years," Cotsworth said. "Clearly no other environmental regulation in the U.S. looking at any risk has ever attempted to regulate for such an extended period of time."
The EPA is taking public comment on proposed safety rules it unveiled in August. The Energy Department would need to show it could meet the standards to obtain a license to open the repository.
The department plans to ship and entomb 77,000 tons of the nation's most highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from 39 states at the Yucca site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Cotsworth said the EPA might extend a public comment period beyond Oct. 21, and no schedule has been set for finalizing the regulation.
Public hearings are scheduled Oct. 3 in Amargosa Valley, the community closest to the Yucca repository site, and Oct. 4-5 in Las Vegas. Another hearing is set Oct. 11 in Washington.
The EPA proposed new Yucca Mountain radiation rules last month, after a federal appeals court in July 2004 invalidated parts of a previous regulation.
Nevada opposes the repository plan, and state elected leaders and Yucca Mountain critics dispute the EPA's characterization of the new radiation rule. They say it was structured to ease the Energy Department's ability to open the repository, and state Attorney General Brian Sandoval has said the state will sue the EPA unless the proposed regulation is changed.
The new two-part EPA proposal calls for the Energy Department to show that a person living about 11 miles away from the site would be exposed to no more than 15 millirem of radiation a year during the first 10,000 years of repository operations.
EPA officials said a routine chest X-ray emits 10 millirem and that a mammogram emits 30 millirem.
After 10,000 years, EPA wants the repository exposure limit at 350 millirem.
Cotsworth said that level was tied to what Colorado residents get in background radiation from soil, rocks, the sun and other natural sources.
"For very long times, total radiation exposures to (individuals) will be no higher than natural levels people live with routinely in other parts of the country," she told the science panel.
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Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT)
September 20, 2005
Yucca Mountain No Longer An Option
MR. BENNETT -- One of the issues that has occupied this chamber for some time, and had a particular impact on those of us in the western states, is the issue of storage of nuclear waste.
The question of where nuclear waste should be stored has been before various administrations and various Congresses literally for decades. And the original policy decision made by administrations past and Congresses past is that there should be a single repository for nuclear waste. After a study by the National Academy of Science and others, the decision was made to put that repository in Nevada in Yucca Mountain, and ever since that time construction has gone forward at the Yucca Mountain facility.
All of that happened before I came to Congress, but when I got here, the debate was going on and we had a particular point where we had to vote once again on whether or not to put nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. At that time, as I looked at the various alternatives, I decided that the best scientific answer to the question of what to do with nuclear waste, was to leave it where it was. I was assured by the scientists that it was safe in the dry-cask storage that had been prepared for its transportation and that it could be safely transported across the country to Yucca Mountain. My reaction to that was, if it´s safe where it is and it´s safe to transport, why transport it at all? Why not leave it where it is?
But it was very clear that the Congress was not going to accept that position, that the president was not going to accept that position, and that we were going to go ahead as a matter of public policy and have a single repository for nuclear waste. So I said, ‘Well, if we´re going to have a single repository for nuclear waste, the most logical place for that is Yucca Mountain,´ and I voted in favor of Yucca Mountain. Looking back on it, the key word in that sentence is the word “if.’ If we´re going to have a single repository for nuclear waste, it appeared that the logical place to put it was Yucca Mountain.
It is now clear that we are not going to have a single repository for nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain has been challenged on scientific grounds. Yucca Mountain has been challenged in the court on legal grounds. And as we look at the present state of our need for energy, Yucca Mountain will be challenged on practical grounds because it is very clear that we are going to need more, not less, nuclear power.
The nuclear power is here to stay, the nuclear plants that we have are going to be re-commissioned and re-licensed and Yucca Mountain will be full, even if we go ahead with the existing plans and still have storage in place. And it doesn´t make sense, from a practical point of view, to move the material all across the country, store it in Yucca Mountain for the purpose of ending storage in place, and then have storage in place come back. So those who saw this in advance, Senator Reid and Senator Ensign, have the right to tell the rest of us, ‘I told you so.´
As it now becomes clear, scientifically, legally, and practically, Yucca Mountain is not going to become a single repository for nuclear waste and we need to start thinking about new strategies and new places to deal with this. I want to make it very clear that I am not opposed to nuclear power; indeed I am a strong supporter of nuclear power. I´ve supported Senator Domenici in crafting the energy bill, to craft the bill in such a way as to encourage America to build new nuclear power plants.
We are behind the rest of the world on this issue. In Europe you find that the French have something like 80 percent of their power generated by nuclear power. The British have large amounts of nuclear power. With the price of natural gas going as high as it is, it becomes increasingly economically unwise for us to continue to build gas-powered electric plants. Nuclear power is something we should get involved in, in a big way in the future, and the energy bill that we passed prior to the August recess laid the groundwork for that.
The question is, of course, if we go in that direction, what do we do with the nuclear waste? If Yucca Mountain is not going to be available, and I´m now convinced that it will not be, where should it be put? There is a proposal that it should be put in the state of Utah at an interim storage site that has just recently been licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I put stress on the word “interim’ because the whole idea behind the proposed facility in Utah in a place called Skull Valley was that it would simply be a stopover for the waste on its way to Yucca Mountain. And so it has been designed and it has been licensed as an interim storage facility.
Well, if it does not make sense for us to take this nuclear waste and put it in a permanent repository, which is what Yucca Mountain is, why does it make sense to put it in an interim repository that does not have the safeguards that are built into Yucca Mountain? Yucca Mountain would put the waste below ground. It would put the waste in vaults that have been prepared for it. The interim facility in Skull Valley would leave the waste above ground. It would leave the waste in the dry-casks storage receptacles that were built for transportation. Why ship it from its present site above ground to another site above ground to say, “Well, this is an interim storage site until we put it into permanent storage?’ The reality is if you do that, then you are creating a permanent storage site because there will be no place to put it after it has been transported to the interim storage site.
While there are those who say, "You just don´t want it in Utah.’ And that´s true; I don´t want it in Utah. But there´s another factor here that drives the reason why I don´t want it in Utah. This particular interim storage site is at the portal to the Utah Test and Training Range. Now most people, even most people in Utah, have never heard of the Utah Test and Training Range and have no idea what it is. It is the largest land range for bombing practice in the United States. It goes all the way back to the Second World War. The crew that flew the mission over Hiroshima in the Enola Gay trained at the Utah Test and Training Range. Today it is still in use. F-16s from Manila Air Force Base fly over the Utah Test and Training Range and practice their bombing runs with live ordnance.
I have flown over the Utah Test and Training Range and been told, "We have to get out of here because the F-16s are coming and they´re going to start bombing." It clearly does not make sense to have an interim storage facility for nuclear waste in an area where F-16s with live ordnance are going to be flying. Now there are those who say, ‘Well, the F-16s can change their flight patterns; they can go around this area, they don´t need to pay attention to it.´
One of the things we have learned from spending time with the BRAC process in determining which military facilities will be retained and which ones will not, is that more military facilities have been closed by encroachment than have been closed by BRAC. Encroachment being development or other activities that come close to the gate of the military base that make it impossible for the people on the base to do their job and they ultimately say, ‘When we built this base, it was surrounded by open spaces, now activity has come in, development has come in, encroachment has happened and we´re going to have to close this base.´ I do not want to have to see encroachment take away the last remaining large land base test and training range in the United States. We need to rethink this whole thing.
So, Mr. President, I´m now making it clear that my support for Yucca Mountain, however well-intended it was at the time, in my opinion does no longer hold in the situation in which we find ourselves. I also believe that the proposal that was made at the last time we approved Yucca Mountain, of leaving the material in place until we can work out the economics and the technology of reprocessing it, is the right approach. That´s what the future holds.
Right now people say, “Well, reprocessing is too expensive.’ But we know from a past experience that technology will find a way around that. It will become cheaper and cheaper the more we do it. We are already involved in reprocessing warheads from the former Soviet Union as we go through the process of reducing nuclear weapons and nuclear stockpiles around the world. As that reprocessing activity goes forward we will learn how to do it faster, we will learn how to do it cheaper, and reprocessing will be available for the nuclear waste that is developed by our nuclear power facilities. At that time it would make sense for the nuclear waste that is stored on site to be reshipped to a reprocessing center, not to an interim storage facility.
There´s one other factor here that needs to be stressed. At the present time, the contract to take the nuclear waste and ship it to the interim storage facility in Utah – which, by the way, has not been built – there´s still a billion dollars worth of investment that has to go into that, and the process by which that will go forward will be under the ownership of the utilities that run the nuclear plants. The main difference between an interim storage facility and a permanent storage facility has to do with titles. In the interim storage facility, the utility that created the waste and ran the nuclear plant retains title to the waste while it is being packaged, while it is being shipped, and while it is in interim storage.
Under the Yucca Mountain proposal, the federal government would take title to the waste the minute Yucca Mountain would open so the federal government would be responsible for packaging it, the federal government would be responsible for protecting it while transporting it, and the federal government would be responsible for the security on the site where it would be.
If we leave it where it is while we work on the issue of reprocessing, title will remain with the utility that produced it, but the security that the utility has already built into its plant is already there. It is not exposed to any terrorist attack while it is moving, so the utility does not have to bear the expense of extra security in moving waste to which they returned title. Then, when we get to the point where we can move it to a reprocessing plant, once again the federal government can take title to it, the federal government can provide the security during transportation, the federal government can see that it is kept safe from terrorist attack and bring it to the reprocessing facility.
One last point, one of the reasons we want to be sure the federal government is in charge of all the reprocessing is that the end product, after reprocessing, is not only energy, additional energy created by the process, but the residue that is left is weapons-grade plutonium. We do not want to run the risk of having weapons-grade plutonium in the hands of private entities. We want to be sure the government controls that. And so, Mr. President, what I think we need to do – “we’ being the collective word for the administration and the Congress general – is to adopt some fundamental principles and then rethink the whole issue to come up with the appropriate details.
The fundamental principles that I would recommend and that I embrace are: number one, we are in favor of nuclear power. We want more nuclear power in this country for all of the environmental reasons dealing with greenhouse gases; for all of the demand reasons dealing with the increase necessity for electric power and for all of the legal reasons having to do with the control of the ownership of the facilities.
Number two, I am in favor of reprocessing. I think we should work toward that technical solution for the question of waste.
And number three, while we are in the process of building new nuclear plants and working toward reprocessing the waste, we should leave the waste where it is. If, indeed, as I say, it is safe to transport and it is safe to store in an interim facility someplace else, by definition it is equally safe to store right where it is. That´s cheaper, that´s equally as safe, and that sets us up for the solution of our problem.
I believe that if we rethink the whole issue as to how we´re going to handle it and what we´re going to do, there may very well be a useful purpose for Yucca Mountain. We have spent, as a nation, billions of dollars preparing that facility. We should review the facility and what it offers and see how it might be used at some particular point in the future and see how we might retain some of the investments we have made there. I am not one who thinks we ought to just fill Yucca Mountain up with dirt and walk away and leave it.
There can be a win-win situation for all. Nevada can get some value out of the investment that has been made in Yucca Mountain if we think it through carefully. The nation can get additional power without the greenhouse gas effect that comes from fossil fuels, and we can ultimately solve the problem of nuclear waste with reprocessing.
I´ve discussed this in general terms with Senator Domenici, who is the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, and I commend him for his original thinking of moving in directions that will make sense for the future.
However much the idea of a single repository may have made sense decades ago, it´s now clear that it does not make sense and we need to move in some future direction. That the degree that Senator Domenici will allow me to participate to find the logical solution under the three principles I have described I would be more than happy to cooperate with him. And to those who had the vision long ago, who have earned the right to say to the rest of us, “I told you so,’ I say I will be happy to join with you too in seeing how we can think this thing through and get the best solution for our nation and all of those who live here.
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Deseret News
September 21, 2005
Bennett reverses: He's foe of Yucca
He'll support Nevada senators' nuclear storage plan
By Jerry Spangler
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — After years of unwavering support for White House nuclear waste policies, Sen. Bob Bennett announced from the Senate floor Tuesday he has reversed course and no longer supports storing spent fuel rods deep underground at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
"I am making it clear that my support for Yucca Mountain . . . does no longer hold in the situation we find ourselves," Bennett said. "It makes sense for (nuclear) waste to be stored on site and to be shipped to a reprocessing center."
The Utah Republican has turned away from Yucca Mountain, both as a location and its deep underground waste storage approach. He said he has turned toward and will lend his unequivocal support to a proposal by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., that all nuclear waste be left at the power plants creating it as the country develops a policy of reprocessing waste.
"Sen. Bennett succinctly and clearly outlined the reasons to oppose both the proposed Yucca Mountain and PFS facilities," Reid said. "The momentum is shifting and the timing is right to address our nuclear waste challenges in a way that offers real, long-term solutions. The safest, most reasonable and effective solution is to store nuclear waste where it is already being produced."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said despite his continuing support of Yucca Mountain storage, he plans to introduce legislation this week calling for a study of waste reprocessing options and a review of safety and operation problems posed by storing waste at power plants and at existing U.S. Department of Energy facilities. Hatch sought to attach that language to an energy bill earlier this year.
"It is important that I keep working on all options to protect our state," Hatch said.
Hatch is facing an intraparty challenge in his re-election bid from Utah House Majority Whip Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, who said the senator is now "on the end of a very thin branch. He'll climb back to the trunk in a hurry."
Bennett's reversal comes days after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to issue a license to Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of nuclear power utilities, to store spent fuel rods on Goshute tribal lands in Skull Valley, Tooele County.
The NRC decision clearly weighed on Bennett, who cited the risks of PFS to the Utah Test and Training Range, the nation's "last remaining" large land-based training range.
"More military facilities have been closed by encroachment than by BRAC," he said, referring to the nonpartisan commission that recommends to Congress and the White House which bases should be closed.
Bennett's reasoning echoes arguments made for years by opponents of PFS, including Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s office and the offices of the two governors who preceded him.
The simple fact of the matter, Bennett said, is that the volumes of nuclear waste being generated by a resurgent nuclear energy industry means PFS will become permanent even if Yucca Mountain opens.
"Yucca Mountain is not going to become the single repository for nuclear waste," he said, referring to PFS as the alternative repository.
News of Bennett pulling his support was welcomed by groups against having high-level nuclear waste in both Utah and Nevada. They have opposed storage for the same reasons that Bennett cited in his Tuesday speech.
The governor said in a statement that Bennett's new position "represents a highly rational approach and a long-term fix to a problem that promises to affect us short term. I've had the opportunity to discuss this issue with Sen. Reid on several occasions and agree with his conclusions," Huntsman said.
Also welcoming Bennett's decision was Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, which for years has fought both the shipping of high-level nuclear waste and the establishment of a repository in either state.
"We're glad to see the leadership Sen. Bennett is showing, to work with our neighbors in the West and force the generators of this waste to share the responsibility of managing it," said Jason Groenewold, director of HEAL, which is based in Salt Lake City.
Groenewold said he hopes Hatch will soon join in "the call for not dumping nuclear waste on the Western states." The material should be stored where it is generated until the United States develops a reasonable long-term solution, he said, adding that he believes Bennett's speech was needed to help solidify that effort.
"No one was going to come to Utah's aid in this fight to stop nuclear waste storage in Utah unless we reached out and created alliances" with others with a common interest, Groenewold said. "And Sen. Bennett's actions indicate his willingness to extend an olive branch to those who we've alienated in the past."
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and a longtime opponent of Yucca Mountain, added that he "recognized that Utah and Nevada should be united against the arrogance of the East Coast dumping its waste on the West. We still have never addressed the transportation risks, whether on the roads or rails to Skull Valley or Yucca Mountain. That is why this lethal cargo should stay where it is until an acceptable disposal solution can be found."
Sen. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has pledged to advocate for Reid's proposal in the House. Bishop's chief of staff, Scott Parker, said nuclear waste storage is a fight worthy of Western states joining forces. "And Rob has said for a long time that on-site storage seems to make the most sense."
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, agrees with Bennett. "For many reasons, I feel it may be time to rethink the wisdom and necessity of transporting nuclear material cross country and storing it in the western United States. . . . Reprocessing is where we should be focusing our attention, not on the unsafe and potentially hazardous transportation of nuclear material."
The entire issue needs to be rethought, Bennett said. The fundamental principles of that new policy should include unqualified support for more nuclear power, that the nation work toward the technology that would allow reprocessing of waste and that all nuclear waste be left where it is until reprocessing can proceed, he said.
If it is safe to transport nuclear waste, and it is safe to store nuclear waste at an interim storage site like Skull Valley, "by definition it is equally as safe to leave it where it is," he said.
The billions of dollars already invested at Yucca Mountain need not be wasted, nor should the attitude be "fill it up with dirt and leave it." He didn't say what that might be, but a useful purpose that would benefit both Nevada and the country could be found by Congress. Bennett said he would be "happy to join" with the Nevada delegation to find the best solution, admitting again that "it is now clear it (Yucca Mountain) does not make sense."
"Sen. Reid and Sen. Ensign have the right to say 'I told you so,' " he said.
Responded Reid: "I look forward to joining forces with Sen. Bennett as we work to protect our states, the West and the nation."
Contributing: Joe Bauman; Lisa Riley Roche
E-mail: spang@desnews.com
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Provo Daily Herald
September 21, 2005
Bennett: Yucca site no longer an option
N.S. Nokkentved DAILY HERALD
A proposed Nevada disposal site for highly radioactive waste is no longer an option, U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, said Tuesday.
Bennett, who voted for the federal government's proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., for spent fuel from commercial power reactors three years ago, has dropped his support for the project.
"As it now becomes clear, scientifically, legally and practically, Yucca Mountain is not going to become a single repository for nuclear waste, and we need to start thinking about new strategies and new places to deal with this," Bennett said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Three years ago, Bennett justified his vote for Yucca Mountain as a way to block a proposed private temporary storage site for spent fuel in Utah, on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley.
Less than two weeks ago, he said he continued to support the administration's policy to pursue the underground repository in the Nevada desert, and that the option of leaving the waste where it was did not appear to be legally or politically viable.
By Tuesday, however, Bennett had changed his mind.
He said he had determined that Yucca Mountain no longer would be viable and expressed a willingness to support legislation proposed by Nevada Democrat Sen. Harry Reid.
"Yucca Mountain has been challenged on scientific grounds. Yucca Mountain has been challenged in the courts on legal grounds," he said.
And Yucca Mountain will be challenged on practical grounds, he said. If Yucca Mountain opened, by the time it was full, waste would still pile up at reactors around the country.
"If it is safe where it is, why transport it at all?" he said.
The country instead needs to find new strategies for dealing with nuclear waste, he said.
Yucca Mountain, in 1987, became the single site under consideration as the place to dispose of the country's most radioactive waste. The site, delayed by legal and technical issues, was to open by 2010. It would hold about 63,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial power reactors and 7,000 tons of high-level waste from government reactors.
Nevada political leaders for years have fought to stop the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Bennett "welcomes the chance to discuss this issue with Sen. Reid and others in the Senate in an effort to seek common ground and address the principles outlined in his remarks," spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest said.
Reid recently said he had plans to introduce a bill, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the timing was uncertain. The bill would turn over ownership and responsibility for spent fuel to the federal Energy Department. The waste would be stored at the sites where it was generated and the department would bear the cost.
Other members of the Utah delegation expressed their support for the idea of leaving the waste where it is and rethinking the nation's nuclear waste policy, which dates from 1982.
"From day one, I have recognized that Utah and Nevada should stand united against the arrogance of the East Coast dumping its waste on the West," said U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.
"We have never addressed the transportation risks, whether on the roads or rails to Skull Valley or Yucca Mountain. That is why this lethal garbage should stay where it is until an acceptable disposal solution can be found, the 3rd District Democrat said in a statement Tuesday.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he plans to introduce legislation similar to Reid's, that he introduced as an amendment to the national energy bill in June.
"The amendment to the energy bill I filed would have put a stop to the Skull Valley site, it would begin a study of alternatives such as reprocessing, storing the waste on site, and storing the waste at existing Department of Energy sites," Hatch said.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has never supported Yucca Mountain and probably would have voted against it, spokesman Scott Parker said.
"We think it's good when Western states can band together," he said.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said the renewed interest in nuclear power may force some changes in the nation's waste policy.
"For many reasons, I feel it may be time to rethink the wisdom and necessity of transporting nuclear material cross country and storing it in the Western United States," he said.
Bennett's tactic of supporting Yucca Mountain to block the Skull Valley project hasn't worked, said Jason Groenewold of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Sept. 9 approved a license for the project proposed by Minnesota-based Private Fuel Storage LLC.
Whether Bennett's change of mind would stop the PFS project is uncertain. That fight's not over, Groenewold said.
"We're glad to see Sen. Bennett is willing to change strategy at a point when Utah needs to build alliances with other Western states rather than alienate them," he said.
N.S. Nokkentved can be reached at 344-2930 or at nnokkentved@heraldextra.com.
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 21, 2005
Stand against waste
On Sept. 10, The Tribune reported that the federal government wants to send much of the nation's nuclear waste to Skull Valley on the Goshute Indian Reservation, just 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. They intend to ship it by rail, which will go directly through Salt Lake City.
I am sure we all realize the hazards and dangers that might be posed if this site so close to Salt Lake City is officially selected.
If we all unite, we can hopefully prevent this from occurring. We must establish a united effort by our city, state officials, all our national representatives and church officials to work toward this common goal of preventing Utah from becoming the nuclear waste dump
for America.
Let's all of us in Utah unite to avoid constant fear of becoming a major target for terrorism, accidental spills in transit, leaking containers in storage and many other possibly deadly situations that could endanger the residents of Utah.
Richard M. Wirick
Salt Lake City
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Salt Lake Tribune
September 21, 2005
Bennett switches, opposes Yucca
Senate speech: He wants to keep the nation's nuclear waste where it is
By Judy Fahys and Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett has changed his mind about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump and now plans to join Nevada lawmakers in pushing for legislation that will keep the radioactive fuel where it is.
"However much the idea of a single repository may have made sense decades ago, it's now clear that it does not make sense and we need to move in some future direction," said the Utah Republican in a Senate floor speech Tuesday.
In publicly renouncing his past position - a rarity in Congress - Bennett allied himself with Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and other political leaders in the state's fight to block a private waste-storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. In the same stroke he isolated his fellow Utah Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch.
Federal nuclear regulators rebuffed the state's protests against the facility and signed off earlier this month on a license for a consortium called Private Fuel Storage (PFS). The site has been designed as temporary storage for up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on its way to permanent disposal in Yucca Mountain.
Bennett, widely regarded as a political pragmatist, also pledged Tuesday to back Nevada, which has successfully battled the Yucca Mountain repository for more than two decades. In a historic Senate vote three years ago, Bennett voted with the majority in a 60-39 decision to override Nevada's Yucca Mountain veto and continue federal work on the repository.
At the time, Bennett maintained the best way to protect Utah from nuclear waste was to speed the stuff to Yucca Mountain. The vote generated friction between both Utah senators and their Nevada counterparts.
But on Tuesday, Bennett acknowledged that Yucca Mountain probably will never be approved as the nation's nuclear repository. He lauded Nevada leaders' vision and said they have ''earned the right to say to the rest of us, 'I told you so.' . . . I say I will be happy to join with you, too, in seeing how we can think this thing through and get the best solution for our nation and all of those who live here.''
Nevada Sens. John Ensign, a Republican, and Harry Reid, the Senate's Democratic leader, have proposed a plan that would prevent waste from being moved from the 65 nuclear plants where it is currently stored. Simultaneously, the federal government would be required to revisit the possibility of reprocessing spent fuel.
Reid was quick to praise Bennett after the speech, saying the Utahn had "succinctly and clearly" laid out reasons for opposing both Yucca Mountain and the Skull Valley facility.
"The momentum is shifting and the timing is right to address our nuclear waste challenges in a way that offers real, long-term solutions," he said.
"I have spent 20 years fighting the absurd idea that massive quantities of deadly nuclear waste can be transported across thousands of miles," Reid added. "I look forward to joining forces with Sen. Bennett as we work to protect our states, the West and the nation."
It also puts Bennett on the same page as most other Utah political leaders. Rep. Rob Bishop said after the PFS license was granted Sept. 9 that he would explore working to move Reid's plan in the House. Rep. Jim Matheson had previously endorsed Reid's proposal and Rep. Chris Cannon is warming to the idea.
However, Bennett's switch put him at odds with key members of his own party, including President Bush and
Hatch.
Bennett's announcement is a rebuke to the continued policy of the Bush administration. In March, Bennett and Hatch met with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and deputy Karl Rove and left the meeting committed to Yucca Mountain as the best way to block the Skull Valley storage site.
Then on Tuesday, Hatch restated that he would continue pursuing his own strategy, an increasingly isolated position among the delegation. He said he plans to re-introduce an Energy Bill amendment this week as a stand-alone bill.
"I have very important meetings coming up concerning the [Skull Valley] project, and it is important that I keep working on all options to protect our state," Hatch said in a press statement from his Washington office.
"The amendment to the Energy bill I filed would have put a stop to the Skull Valley site. It would begin a study of alternatives such as reprocessing, storing the waste onsite, and storing the waste at existing Department of Energy sites."
Hatch and Bennett had previously cited assurances from the companies that make up PFS that they would not pursue storing waste in Utah if Yucca Mountain were built in a timely manner.
Bennett's admission that Yucca is unlikely to ever be constructed also acknowledges the companies' promise may be moot.
Huntsman was among those who backed Bennett's new position.
"It represents a highly rational approach and a long-term fix to a problem that promises to affect us short-term," he said in a statement issued through spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi.
Vanessa Pierce of the group Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah said Bennett's change of heart is a good first step.
"We're glad to see Senator Bennett extend an olive branch to our neighbors," she said. "Hopefully, Senator Hatch will soon join the effort to keep nuclear waste out of the West."
Bennett emphasized in his speech that he still favors nuclear power - both as a tool to address growing energy needs and to minimize the coal-power emissions that contribute to global warming.
He said the United States should be using more nuclear energy, as other nations do, and looking harder at reprocessing.
He also offered many reasons why the Skull Valley site is a bad solution. He said:
* The site is close to the Utah Test and Training Range, the largest test-bombing range in the continental United States;
l It lacks the security that Yucca Mountain or nuclear-plant sites provide;
* It would be better to keep waste in the federal government's hands, rather then under the control of a private entity; and
l There is significant danger - of a terrorist attack, for instance - in moving the waste from place to place.
fahys@sltrib.com
gehrke@sltrib.com
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Standard-Examiner
September 21, 2005
Bennett no longer supporting Yucca site
By Jennifer Talhelm
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Utah Sen. Bob Bennett on Tuesday reversed his support for a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, saying it was a mistake and that the nation needs to find another solution.
"I'm now making it clear that my support for Yucca Mountain, however well intended it was at the time, in my opinion does no longer hold in the situation in which we find ourselves," Bennett said in a speech on the Senate floor. "We need to move forward in some other direction."
Bennett has indicated in the past that he was backing off his support for the permanent storage site. However, his statement marks a significant turn in the ongoing rift between Nevada and Utah over Yucca Mountain, which Nevada's politicians have long opposed.
The two states are linked over the issue. A proposed facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation that would temporarily store waste until Yucca opens just received approval for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Utah lawmakers now are trying to block the site, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, by designating wilderness around it.
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, has been trying to drum up support for legislation that would leave nuclear waste on site where it is generated.
Utah's officials have supported Yucca Mountain if it meant that the temporary site, which would be run by a group of utilities called Private Fuel Storage, would never open. They say it is too dangerous.
Bennett said Tuesday that legal and political challenges to Yucca now make it look like the facility might never open, meaning the Goshute reservation could become a permanent storage site.
Congress and President Bush should look at alternatives, including storing the waste in place and eventually reprocessing it, he said.
"To those ... who have earned the right to say to the rest of us, 'I told you so,' I say I will be happy to join with you, too, in seeing how we can think this thing through and get the best solution for our nation," Bennett said.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch did not join Bennett in backing down from his support for Yucca Mountain.
Instead, Hatch's office released a statement that said Hatch supports the alternatives Bennett suggested and plans to introduce them in a bill this week.
"I have very important meetings coming up concerning the PFS project, and it is important that I keep working on all options to protect our state," he said.
Reid said he thinks the momentum is shifting on the issue.
"The safest, most reasonable and effective solution is to store nuclear waste where it is already being produced," he said in a statement. "I look forward to joining forces with Senator Bennett as we work to protect our states, the West and the nation."
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Brattleboro Reformer
September 21, 2005
Board hears from public on VY waste
By K. Ceccarossi
Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The wheels are officially turning on a plan that would put high-level nuclear waste storage bins at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
Most of the people who will decide whether installing so-called dry cask containers at the Vernon plant is a good idea don't live in Windham County; many of them don't even live in Vermont.
Scrutiny of the proposal and a set of rules for the storage will take place largely in Washington, D.C., and the state capital.
The people who do live around the plant and would be most affected by any consequences of dry cask containers got one serious shot to participate in the review process Tuesday, when the state's Public Service Board, which must endorse the proposal for it to fly, hosted a public hearing in the Brattleboro Union High School auditorium.
Overwhelmingly, the message was to deny the dry casks, or any initiative that might extend operations at Vermont Yankee. But if the board does decide to approve the plan, residents implored them to do so only after a rigorous review.
The board heard pleas from neighbors who fear the waste storage would increase the odds of a radioactive emergency at the plant; they also heard promises from plant employees that the dry casks would be safe and secure.
More than 100 people filled the auditorium, traveling from all parts of the county, from towns across the Connecticut River in New Hampshire and south of the Massachusetts border.
"Is the proposal in the public good?" asked Phil Allard of Deerfield, Mass. "It's a no brainer. When has Vermont Yankee decided anything for the public good? They decide for profit."
Approving a waste storage site, Allard said, is "like moving the furniture around on the Titanic."
Most of the 70 or so people who testified to the Public Service Board said they are against dry casks. However, there were at least a dozen people who urged the board to approve the plan. Nearly all of them identified themselves as employees of Entergy Nuclear, corporate owner of the plant.
Former Gov. Thomas Salmon, a Democrat from Bellows Falls, also spoke in favor of the proposal. He called dry casks a "proven technology ... virtually impervious to threats from terrorists or others." Salmon was also a former head of Green Mountain Power Corp.
The Public Service Board is a three-member, quasi-judicial board that reviews all matters energy and ratepayer related. It's up to them to decide if installing steel and concrete containers to hold high-level nuclear waste is in the best interest of the state.
Only two members of the Public Service Board will participate in the review process.
Last week, Board Chairman James Volz recused himself from the case, saying he wanted to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest because of his prior job. Before joining the board in March, Volz was head of public advocacy with the Department of Public Service, which had lobbied in favor of dry cask before the Legislature.
The Public Service Board will hold hearings on the proposal in the next few months, taking testimony from plant owners Entergy Nuclear, the state's Department of Public Service and nuclear watchdog groups New England Coalition and Citizens Awareness Network.
Tuesday's meeting was a precursor. So was a tour of the plant, Tuesday afternoon, where board members David Coen and John Burke, got a look at the exact site where plant owners want to store the dry cask containers.
The site is about 200 feet from the Connecticut River. Six containers, weighing 190 tons, standing about 20 feet high and 11 feet across, would be placed on a reinforced concrete pad just north of the plant's turbine building.
The pad, 76 by 132 feet, has room for up to 36 containers, project manager John Hoffman said. Right now plant officials are only seeking permission to erect six containers, which Hoffman said could hold waste produced at the plant only through 2011.
Currently, nuclear waste is stored in a spent fuel pool inside the plant. Vermont Yankee officials have said dry cask storage is necessary because they must move spent fuel assemblies from the pool, which is filling up. If they can't move assemblies, officials say they will have to shut down in 2008.
Officials say the bins would be temporary -- a stopgap until the federal Department of Energy takes the waste to a permanent site. But plans for that facility, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, have been stalled in Congress for decades.
At the public hearing Tuesday, the Public Service Board asked speakers to comment only on Vermont Yankee's application for dry cask storage. Invariably, though, people opposed to the plan made comments beyond those limitations. Many mentioned another proposal by plant officials, still pending state and federal approval, to increase power at the plant, or "uprate" it, to 20 percent current capacity.
"Why can't we discuss this in the context of the uprate?" Brattleboro resident Andrew Davis asked the board. "Entergy is plying a careful game of chess ... [Dry cask storage] is the next movement on the board ... I pray that you are not pawns in this game."
"Only now, on the brink of financial gamble for the power output, do we suddenly need dry cask storage," Davis said.
This year, the Legislature also tackled the dry cask storage proposal. After months of debate, it approved a bill allowing Vermont Yankee officials to file their application with the Public Service Board.
The vote followed intense negotiations between Entergy Nuclear and the Legislature and drew criticism from some local residents who felt it didn't go far enough to protect the state. Under the agreement, Entergy Nuclear must pay $2.5 million per year into a state renewable energy fund, as a sort of tax on the casks. However, there will be no charge if Entergy's bid to boost power by 20 percent is not approved.
At Tuesday's hearing, state Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney, called on the Public Service Board to analyze the storage plan in a way the Legislature wasn't able to.
"You have the advantage ... of expert witnesses and putting people under oath," he said. "We're depending on you."
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Foster's Daily Democrat
September 21, 2005
Utility regulators tour radwaste storage site, hear from public
By David Gram
Associated Press Writer
VERNON, Vt. (AP) — Two of the Public Service Board's three members joined about two dozen others Tuesday on a tour of the area at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant where the plant wants to store high-level radioactive waste in concrete and steel casks.
The afternoon tour, followed by a public hearing Tuesday evening in neighboring Brattleboro, came at the start of the board's review of Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear's plan to move some of the oldest and least radioactive spent fuel from its spent fuel pool to the dry casks — cylinders about 20 feet high and 11 feet across that would be placed on a reinforced concrete pad just north of the plant's turbine building.
Former Gov. Thomas Salmon, a Democrat who served during the 1970s and later was chairman of Green Mountain Power Corp., was among those at the evening hearing speaking in favor of the dry cask storage plan. He called it a "proven technology ... virtually impervious to threats from terrorists or others."
Vermont Yankee has said it needs to move some spent fuel assemblies out of its spent fuel pool because the pool serving the 33-year-old reactor is filling up. Plant officials have said it will have to shut down in 2008 if the extra storage is not approved — 2007 if the plant wins the permission it seeks to boost its output by 20 percent.
Salmon said Vermont needs its lone reactor as a relatively cheap source of electricity. Of shutting the plant down early, he said, "That's an unacceptable proposition in my view."
But many other speakers from an audience of about 100 said the waste storage conundrum is a major symptom of problems connected with a technology they wish had never been put into use. They argued that much of the waste would remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, that the government and nuclear industry so far had not answered the question of how to dispose of it, and that the first step should be halting production of it by shutting down nuclear plants.
"We need to get to another energy source that doesn't produce this waste," said Colin Blazej of Windham. He said he feared the dry cask storage plan "would delay that day," adding, "No other generation has given this dangerous a legacy to the next 5,000 generations."
Dave McElwee, a senior engineer at the plant, began the afternoon tour by showing visitors the rail spur leading to the plant that Vermont Yankee hopes to use to move the 190-ton casks from the plant either to a permanent or temporary nuclear waste disposal site. A long-planned government waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is tied up in litigation; meanwhile a nuclear industry consortium including Entergy has proposed a privately operated site in Utah.
"We're obviously hopeful that the DOE (the federal Department of Energy) starts to take the fuel," McElwee said.
After a thorough security screening so the group could enter the plant's protected areas, McElwee led the tour to the area where the plant has proposed to install its new waste storage.
McElwee and project manager John Hoffman provided some of the particulars about the proposed dry cask storage facility. The concrete pad, 76 by 132 feet, on which the casks will be placed will be at 252 feet above sea level. The Connecticut River, about 210 feet away, generally runs at about 218 feet above sea level past the plant. It's been estimated that there would be one flood in 500 years in which the river passing the plant would rise to 231 feet.
Fuel from the spent fuel pool would be loaded into the casks in the pool, then lowered by crane to ground level, where a large tractor-like vehicle would remove each cask from the reactor building's south end about 150 yards to the pad.
Hoffman said the biggest challenge to date in designing the project was fitting the pad where it's going to go. "It's a small site," he said. "We wanted to keep it in the protected area," behind the plant's security perimeter.
Public Service Board members David Coen and John Burke joined the tour. The panel's chairman, James Volz, has removed himself from the dry cask storage review to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Until March, Volz was director of public advocacy at the Department of Public Service, which strongly has supported the dry cask storage plan.
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Vermont Guardian
September 21, 2005
BRATTLEBORO — The parameters laid out by the Legislature for the dry storage of nuclear waste could be changed if state utility regulators decide to do so, according to a top official with the Department of Public Service.
Public Service Department attorney Sarah Hoffman said the Public Service Board (PSB), a separate entity that on Tuesday made its first foray into the contentious issue, is not bound by a memorandum of understanding forged last spring between Entergy and the state as part of legislation to allow nuclear waste storage in Vernon.
Under state law, Vermont Yankee owner Entergy must obtain a certificate of public good from the board before building a dry cask storage facility in Vernon.
Anti-nuclear activists and southern Vermont lawmakers were furious when officials from the department negotiated away what they considered to be key points of the memorandum, including a requirement for earthen or concrete berms around each cask and individual radiation monitoring devices hard-wired directly to the Department of Health.
Both Hoffman and state nuclear engineer Bill Sherman said they did the best they could in the talks. “Every negotiation has gives and takes,’ said Sherman.
Federal law forbids the state to deal with nuclear safety. In the moU, Entergy pledged not to claim federal preemption on any of the negotiated points. The company also agreed to pay $2.5 million annually into a new renewable energy fund, but only if the uprate is approved.
But “the board is not bound by the MOU,’ said Hoffman, speaking to the Vermont Guardian at the close of a lengthy PSB hearing in Brattleboro on the waste issue, which drew more than 100 area residents and Vermont Yankee employees.
Many nuclear power opponents at the hearing urged the board not to consider the storage question separate from the proposed uprate at Vermont Yankee, which would increase power output at the plant by 20 percent, or its possible relicensing in 2012.
In an earlier decision, the board gave tentative approval to the uprate, pending an independent safety assessment of the plant. It has is not yet signed off on the assessment conducted last summer by NRC and outside inspectors.
“This debate is a smokescreen,’ said Brattleboro music teacher Andy Davis.
“Entergy is playing a chess game with the regulations and the public is getting outplayed,’ he cautioned. “This is the next move on the board for uprate. I pray that you´re not the next pawns that get played.’
Davis questioned why VY owners waited until now, more than 32 years after the reactor went on line, to seek permission to store the waste on site. “It´s a gamble to extend the life an aging plant,’ he declared. “It´s about the money.’
Like all commercial reactor operators, Entergy has been paying into a Department of Energy fund to develop Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a nuclear waste repository. But that project has been plagued by logistical and legal problems and is not expected to open anytime soon, if at all.
Entergy is also part of a coalition of nuclear power plant owners that is developing a private waste storage site in Utah, but VY engineer David McElwee said without elaboration Tuesday, during a tour of the proposed Vernon site, that he didn´t know if the VY would send its spent fuel to Utah.
Without onsite dry storage, officials say VY would have to shut down by 2008 because there will be no room left in the pool where the spent fuel is currently stored.
They are seeking a certificate of public good from the PSB to construct a 76- by 132-foot concrete pad within the security perimeters of the Vernon site, large enough to house 40 casks, each 19 feet high by 11 feet in diameter, and weighing 190 tons. Each $1 million cask would hold 68 fuel rod assemblies. The storage pad is approximately 200 feet from the bank of the Connecticut River, and about 37 feet above the average level of the river. The facility could provide enough fuel storage for the plant to operate through 2032 at 120 percent of its current generation capacity.
The casks, manufactured by Holtec International, are also mobile and could be moved by rail to another fuel storage site in the future. The Holtec system carries a general license issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, so VY officials only need only state approval to build the storage facility.
Critics say the casks are flimsy and cite an audit by Exelon Energy whistleblower Oscar Shirani, who found multiple deficiencies with the system. The NRC has dismissed the findings as unfounded, and Shirani was fired from his job.
But Vermont Yankee employees lined up at the hearing to endorse the proposal and vouch for their company´s safety record.
VY assistant engineer Jeff Melvin said he worked for 12 years at an Entergy nuclear plant in Arkansas, where his job was to visually inspect each cask twice a day for signs of weathering, air-flow obstructions and temperature monitors. “They presented no hazard. At no time during my hundreds of inspections did I ever fear for my safety,’ he said. “I don´t recall ever receiving even 1 millirem as a result of my proximity to those casks.’
Entergy bought Vermont Yankee in 2001 “because it was recognized as a well-run organization,’ he said. Since he transferred to Vernon last year, he said “I´ve seen nothing to challenge that conclusion.’
Referring to an “international energy crisis moving toward epic levels,’ former Democratic Gov. Tom Salmon said, “The question becomes what can this board do to deal with pricing issues … The answer is, if you find it safe, proven technology, virtually immune to serious threat by terrorists or others, you can approve systems that are now operating at some 24 nuclear power plants in the country and avoid the rather frightful possibility that by no later than 2008 we find ourselves in situation where this plant would have to close because it had no further capacity for its wet storage.’
But Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Putney, a member of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, urged the board members to be more rigorous than the Legislature was when presented with a bill to allow dry cask storage just two days before adjourning in June.
He urged board members David Cohen and John Burke to consider the length of time the contents of the canisters would remain hazardous — which experts put at 100,000 years — and limitations on Entergy´s liability. Vermont Yankee is owned by Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY), a limited liability corporation held by parent company Entergy Nuclear, which is itself a subsidiary of the larger Louisiana-based Entergy Corp.
“The ball is in your court because Entergy gamed the political process,’ Darrow said. “They provided little solid information to the legislative committees, and when they didn´t like the bill that came out, which gave them permission to do dry cask storage, it went behind closed doors … Don´t let them game you. You have the advantage over the Legislature of having in-house experts, being able to put people under oath and cross examine them under oath, so we´re depending on you.’
Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, who voted in favor of the bill, told Cohen and Burke that they were Vermont´s “last line of defense.’
“That waste may remain here forever,’ Edwards said. “We deserve at least what other states have gotten in assurances so that the public is protected as much as possible. Right now we don´t have that assurance.’
Only Burke and Cohen will decide the dry cask issue. Public Service Board Chairman James Volz earlier this month recused himself from the case, citing a possible appearance of conflict of interest.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 20, 2005
Utah official switches gears on plan for nuclear waste
Delegation may be softening its stance on Yucca Mountain
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- A Utah senator today said he planned to introduce a "major" new comprehensive plan for dealing with the nation's nuclear waste.
Sen. Robert Bennett, a Republican, today said he would unveil the details in a speech this week.
"The whole issue of storage is evolving," Bennett said. "The energy bill made it very clear that we are on the side of nuclear power. We want more nuclear power, which raises the question of what do we do about the waste."
Bennett and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have been supportive of storing all highly radioactive waste from throughout the nation at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the Utah delegation may be softening its stance on the proposed nuclear waste repository, in part because Utah recently moved one step closer to becoming a dumping ground itself.
On Sept. 9, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a green light to a consortium of eight nuclear power utilities that aim to establish a temporary waste site on Goshute Indian reservation roughly 45 miles from Salt Lake City. Utah political leaders have long fought the proposal. The waste site ultimately could store up to 44,000 tons of waste in steel containers.
The Goshute site is considered a stepping stone for waste that ultimately would be bound for the permanent underground repository planned at Yucca Mountain, which would have a capacity for up to 77,000 tons of waste. Energy Department officials aim to open Yucca as early as 2012, although critics say it likely would be later.
Last week Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, for the first time threw his support behind a plan advocated by Nevada lawmakers to keep high-level nuclear waste stored where it now sits -- on-site at nuclear power plants -- until a better plan or new recycling technology is developed.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is planning legislation that would require an on-site storage policy in which the Energy Department would assume ownership of the waste. But he has not yet introduced it. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., introduced a similar bill to leave waste on-site, as well as kill Yucca and use the money for reprocessing research, but it has little hope of House approval.
Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, already support the Nevadans' on-site plan.
And Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, is closer to Nevada's position than he was a year ago, although he still has not advocated killing Yucca Mountain.
There is no indication that Bennett is planning to suddenly oppose Yucca, but the suspicions are that he will be proposing some kind of compromise.
Utah leaders have faced a quandary: Advocate Yucca so that waste doesn't end up sitting long-term in Utah? Or side with the Nevadans in a unified front to keep waste out of the West?
Utah's Republican senators, Bennett and Hatch, have thus far clung to their Yucca support. Bennett today did not say if that support would change, but only said that his proposal would include a more comprehensive approach to dealing with the nation's nuclear waste.
Hatch has eyed friends and foes in the fight and is weighing strategy. Power brokers support Yucca, including most Western lawmakers and President Bush, Hatch has noted.
"If we join Sen. Reid at this time in an anti-Yucca Mountain stance, that would alienate some of those who are best positioned to help us," Hatch told the Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday.
Hatch has said it is better to leave waste where it is to await a permanent home at Yucca rather than send it to Utah temporarily.
Hatch and Bennett drew the ire of Nevada lawmakers in 2002 when they emerged from a meeting at the White House with key Bush administration officials who promised them no federal support for the Goshute site if the two senators would support Yucca. They agreed to the deal.
But it turned out to be a somewhat empty promise. The Bush administration's NRC approved the Goshute site this month. And the White House can do little to slow the Goshute project, which would be financed with corporate money.
In turn, Hatch and Bennett reportedly have not been happy with Reid. Reid, like the other Nevada lawmakers, oppose the Goshute site. But Hatch has said Reid has thwarted their efforts to fight the interim dump.
Reid is a personal friend but "he has shown that he doesn't have Utah's best interests in mind," Hatch said in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Officials with the utility consortium Private Fuel Storage say their temporary storage facility is necessary even if Yucca is opened soon. Not all waste will be shipped to Yucca immediately and the Goshute site will offer nuclear utilities some relief, they say. Many nuclear power plants have filled their indoor waste pools and are now storing waste in dry casks in outdoor, on-site storage areas.
Congress adopted Yucca as the solution to the nation's nuclear waste storage problem, and promised nuclear plants that it would begin shipping waste away by 1998. But Yucca has long been plagued by delays, prompting the nuclear utilities to seek alternatives to expensive on-site storage.
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Las Vegas SUN
September 20, 2005
Nevada meeting on Yucca is added
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency approved an additional hearing in Nevada next month to allow those observing the Rosh Hashanah holiday to participate in public comment meetings on Yucca Mountain radiation standards.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who is Jewish, requested an additional hearing because those originally scheduled conflict with the Jewish holiday, which starts at sundown on Oct. 3 and ends at sundown on Oct. 5.
The EPA added another hearing in Las Vegas on Oct. 6.
The public hearing comment periods last through Oct. 21. Nevada officials have called for a longer period, but the agency has not made a final decision.
The EPA has proposed two-tier radiation standard for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
One tier maintains the 15-millirem standard for up to 10,000 years, and the other limits exposure to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years.
State officials and other Yucca critics object to the standard saying there is no reason the radiation limit should increase so drastically, especially at the time when the waste storage containers inside the mountain would likely fail.
The state plans more legal action but the rule has to be finalized first. Once the public comment period ends, the agency will evaluate the comments and could make changes it deems necessary.
The complete hearing schedule for the Environmental Protection Agency on Yucca Mountain:
AMARGOSA VALLEY
Monday, Oct. 3, 4 p.m. - 9 p.m. Amargosa Valley Community Center 821 Eas Farm Road, Amargosa Valley, NV Information Session 4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Roundtable Dialogue Session 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Public Hearing 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
LAS VEGAS
The Cashman Center, Rooms 203-206 850 North Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV
Tuesday, Oct. 4 4 p.m. - 9 p.m. Information Session 4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Roundtable Dialogue Session 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Public Hearing 7 p.m. - 9p.m.
Wednesday, Oct. 5 10a.m. - 12 p.m. Information Session 10a.m. - 11.m. Public Hearing 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 6 10 a.m .- 12 p.m. Information Session 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Public Hearing 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2005 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. EPA East Building, Room 1153 1201 Constitution Avenue, NW Information Session 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. Public Hearing 2 p.m. -4 p.m. Please use the Constitution Ave. entrance and bring a photo ID.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
September 20, 2005
A Nevadan's story for the next generation
In her memoir, Barbara Vucanovich looks back on seven terms in the House of Representatives, political partisanship and raising a family in Nevada
Susan Skorupa
Reno Gazette-Journal
Barbara Vucanovich and Patricia Cafferata laugh at the notion that Vucanovich's autobiography might be politically partisan.
Of course it's partisan, they say. Vucanovich spent 14 years in the U.S. Congress as a staunch Republican representing Nevada. Her book, "Barbara Vuchanovich: From Nevada to Congress, and Back Again" (University of Nevada Press, $34.95 hardcover), highlights those political years, the battles she won and lost, the people she met, those she admired and those she didn't.
Most of them were politicians too.
But she also writes about her family, the husband she divorced, the two who died, the children she raised and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who have followed.
"It's pretty egotistical, I think, to do a memoir," Vucanovich said last week during an interview in Cafferata's home.
But her son Ken Dillon had asked her to write down some family tales and stories from her seven terms in Congress for his children to read and keep.
"Patty (Cafferata) said, 'It's not just the grandchildren you should do it for, but others. Let's talk about memoirs, family things,'" Vucanovich said.
"It's not as easy as it sounds," she added.
For five years, Cafferata talked to her mother about her life and career for an hour a week, taping the conversations. Cafferata transcribed the talks, Vucanovich edited the transcriptions and made corrections. The University of Nevada Press eventually took on the project and made suggestions.
After a couple more readings by others for technical accuracy, writing style and a word-by-word read for language use and grammar, the publisher took over. One outside reader contracted by the publisher was critical of "Mother's partisanship," Cafferata recalled.
"We thought, 'Do they understand?' If not, the average reader might not understand either," Cafferata said. "So we added an explanation of the process of (political) parties and all that happens."
For most people, political parties don't affect their lives every day, even if they identify with a party, Cafferata said. For a politician in elected office, party affiliation is part of every aspect of the work day.
"It's still kind of hard to believe I did it," Vucanovich said of her political career -- a career she undertook at age 61 in 1982 when she won her first political campaign, a run for the seat in Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, which was new that year.
"Growing up, I did not think I would do it. I'm proud I held my own. I was not intimidated and it was a fascinating experience," she said, looking back on those years.
Vucanovich was a homemaker, the mother of five, grandmother of several, a business woman and an active campaigner for Republican candidates and causes when she decided to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat, which encompasses most of the state outside of Las Vegas.
She had campaigned for various Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s, including Cliff Young, Dick Horton and Bob Horton. After the death of her husband Ken Dillon in 1964, Paul Laxalt asked her to run his Northern Nevada campaign for U.S. senator. She met George Vucanovich during that campaign and later married him.
When she decided nearly two decades later to run for office herself, both her husband and Laxalt backed her.
Her age didn't affect either her ability to get elected or her ability to do her job in the House, Vucanovich said, although some campaign rivals tried to make age an issue.
"I had more life experience than someone 29 or 30," she said.
While age proved no barrier to re-election -- Vucanvich was re-elected six times with little difficulty -- political opponents were known to try to use the issue against her. "Grandmother" was bandied about by opponents, so was "blue hair," a reference to her gray hair color at one time, and even worse comments.
"I was younger then," she said. "Think what they'd say now! It became funny. My husband, George, was much more sensitive."
While Vucanovich discusses her working relationships and opinions about various presidents, vice presidents, senators and congressmen, including most members of Nevada's delegation to Congress over her years of service, she also explains a day in the life of a congressman, gives an overview of her freshman year in the House and discusses some politically touchy issues such as campaign contributions, political action committees, travel junkets and some of the political hot-buttons such as Yucca Mountain, abortion, wilderness designations, mining law and Indian gaming.
She relives such highlights as her introduction to Reno in the 1940s when she arrived in town to seek a divorce, her flight in an F-16 fighter plane and the effects of picon punch -- a lethal Basque beverage -- on a prospective voter at a Paul Laxalt rally in Tonopah.
Vucanovich didn't shrink from her personal life, devoting pages to the deaths of husbands Ken Dillon and George Vucanovich, the 1996 death of her son Michael Dillon of a heart attack and her own battle with breast cancer.
Her retirement has kept her active in support of Republican candidates and causes and on the boards of various groups.
"I have to say I miss certain things," she said of life after the House of Representatives. "There's an almost false sense of how important (you are.) I don't miss that, but I do miss the opportunity to be involved."
Some of the proceeds from her book will benefit the Nevada Women's History Project and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
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Lahontan Valley News
September 20, 2005
Time to get serious about truck bypass
The residents of Fernley got a good scare last week when a 10,000-gallon tanker carrying pressurized liquid natural gas sprang a leak and caught fire in the middle of a parking lot next to Interstate 80.
Fortunately the worst-case scenario - an explosion that could have destroyed everything within a one-mile radius - never materialized, thanks, in part, to some heads-up action on the part of local firefighters.
The incident did illustrate kinds of hidden dangers that roll down American highways every day.
The incident also illustrates the value of routing trucks, to the extent possible, around and away from populated centers to minimize the risk to people and property in the event of a spill, accident or terrorist plot.
Fallon, located at the crossroads of two U.S. highways in a major shipping corridor, is especially vulnerable to a truck-related disaster. Highway 95 is a major arterial feeding Las Vegas with all kinds of substances arriving from all over the U.S. Some of those substances, possibly including radioactive waste bound for Yucca Mountain, move to southern Nevada through the heart of downtown Fallon. In fact, they have to drive down Maine Street past Fallon's historic wooden courthouse. Imagine the chaos that would have prevailed had the Fernley tanker caught on fire at the intersection of Maine and Williams in Fallon.
City officials have been talking about creating a truck bypass around Fallon for years. There has been lots of talk but, unfortunately, not much in the way of substantive action.
With the increasing number of trucks headed through Fallon on their way to Las Vegas it is not a matter of if there will be a hazmat incident, it is a matter of when.
We urge the mayor, city council and fire department to sound the alarm and begin the process of planning a bypass with a new sense of urgency.
Let's not wait for an errant tanker to blow a hole in the middle of town to get serious about this perilous situation.
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Standard-Examiner
September 20, 2005
Saying no to nuclear waste
At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there must be panic. The NRC, years ago, was supposed to have been storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
But that plan has never gone well. The regulatory process to license the permanent-storage site has lagged behind schedule. Then the opposition to the storage facility -- where the spent nuclear fuel would be stored for 10,000 years -- got a real shot in the arm earlier this year when it was revealed that some of the science had allegedly been falsified to make Yucca appear suitable.
So the NRC, its back against a wall, recently gave the OK to the "temporary" storage in Utah's Skull Valley of 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods from nuclear-power reactors across this country. Utah's been fighting the proposed above-ground storage facility for almost a decade, but the NRC and its ally in the effort -- Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of nuclear-power utilities who want to get rid of their spent fuel -- have been tenacious. Now all that stands in the way of the waste coming to Utah is a Bureau of Land Management lease to build a rail spur into the Skull Valley site, and a Bureau of Indian Affairs approval of a lease between PFS and the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes tribe.
While Utah's congressional delegation is feverishly working to circumvent the final go-ahead from Uncle Sam, Gov. Huntsman has vowed to go so far as to stand on the tracks to prevent shipments of the waste to Skull Valley. (That recalls former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus' dramatic halting of radioactive shipments into the Gem State in 1988 by closing off the state's borders.)
And while the deal is not yet done, the situation has gone from troublesome to dire. The NRC has rejected dozens of the state's objections to the Skull Valley storage over the years. The Standard-Examiner's editorial opinion has consistently been opposed to the Skull Valley storage site, for a variety of reasons, foremost among them:
* Transportation safety: The waste is safely stored now where it is produced. It cannot possibly be safer to remove it and transport trainloads of the waste from multiple locations around the nation over vast distances to Utah.
* Safe storage in Utah: The proposed above-ground facility on the Goshute reservation is directly under the flight path of military jets -- including thousands of F-16 training flights each year. The jets are flying to the Utah Test and Training Range west of Skull Valley, and on their way over the proposed waste site they are commonly loaded with all manner of live ordnance: bombs, missiles and other ammunition. The NRC says the casks in which the nuclear waste is stored can withstand the impact of an F-16; what the NRC does not say is whether the casks can withstand the impact of an F-16 carrying multiple weapons systems, like Sidewinder missiles.
* Another argument conveniently ignored is that Utahns, like our neighbors in southeastern Nevada, have suffered inordinately from the federal government's open-air testing of atomic and nuclear weapons in the 1950s and '60s. Given the amount of radiation-related cancers and other illnesses visited upon Utahns, how can the moral argument be made to risk our health further?
We are happy to note that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement opposed to the Skull Valley site: "We regret the decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to authorize the issuance of a license that would allow storage of radioactive waste in Skull Valley. Storage of nuclear waste in Utah is a matter of significant public interest that requires thorough scrutiny."
Utahns will need all the help we can muster to keep the waste outside our borders. With a permanent storage site still in question, it's time for the NRC to begin pursuing the remedy European countries have found: reprocessing the waste for future use.
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Boston Globe
September 20, 2005
Utility regulators tour radwaste storage site, hear from public
By David Gram
Associated Press Writer
VERNON, Vt. --Two of the Public Service Board's three members joined about two dozen others Tuesday on a tour of the area at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant where the plant wants to store high-level radioactive waste in concrete and steel casks.
The afternoon tour, followed by a public hearing Tuesday evening in neighboring Brattleboro, came at the start of the board's review of Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear's plan to move some of the oldest and least radioactive spent fuel from its spent fuel pool to the dry casks -- cylinders about 20 feet high and 11 feet across that would be placed on a reinforced concrete pad just north of the plant's turbine building.
Former Gov. Thomas Salmon, a Democrat who served during the 1970s and later was chairman of Green Mountain Power Corp., was among those at the evening hearing speaking in favor of the dry cask storage plan. He called it a "proven technology ... virtually impervious to threats from terrorists or others."
Vermont Yankee has said it needs to move some spent fuel assemblies out of its spent fuel pool because the pool serving the 33-year-old reactor is filling up. Plant officials have said it will have to shut down in 2008 if the extra storage is not approved -- 2007 if the plant wins the permission it seeks to boost its output by 20 percent.
Salmon said Vermont needs its lone reactor as a relatively cheap source of electricity. Of shutting the plant down early, he said, "That's an unacceptable proposition in my view."
But many other speakers from an audience of about 100 said the waste storage conundrum is a major symptom of problems connected with a technology they wish had never been put into use. They argued that much of the waste would remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, that the government and nuclear industry so far had not answered the question of how to dispose of it, and that the first step should be halting production of it by shutting down nuclear plants.
"We need to get to another energy source that doesn't produce this waste," said Colin Blazej of Windham. He said he feared the dry cask storage plan "would delay that day," adding, "No other generation has given this dangerous a legacy to the next 5,000 generations."
Dave McElwee, a senior engineer at the plant, began the afternoon tour by showing visitors the rail spur leading to the plant that Vermont Yankee hopes to use to move the 190-ton casks from the plant either to a permanent or temporary nuclear waste disposal site. A long-planned government waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is tied up in litigation; meanwhile a nuclear industry consortium including Entergy has proposed a privately operated site in Utah.
"We're obviously hopeful that the DOE (the federal Department of Energy) starts to take the fuel," McElwee said.
After a thorough security screening so the group could enter the plant's protected areas, McElwee led the tour to the area where the plant has proposed to install its new waste storage.
McElwee and project manager John Hoffman provided some of the particulars about the proposed dry cask storage facility. The concrete pad, 76 by 132 feet, on which the casks will be placed will be at 252 feet above sea level. The Connecticut River, about 210 feet away, generally runs at about 218 feet above sea level past the plant. It's been estimated that there would be one flood in 500 years in which the river passing the plant would rise to 231 feet.
Fuel from the spent fuel pool would be loaded into the casks in the pool, then lowered by crane to ground level, where a large tractor-like vehicle would remove each cask from the reactor building's south end about 150 yards to the pad.
Hoffman said the biggest challenge to date in designing the project was fitting the pad where it's going to go. "It's a small site," he said. "We wanted to keep it in the protected area," behind the plant's security perimeter.
Public Service Board members David Coen and John Burke joined the tour. The panel's chairman, James Volz, has removed himself from the dry cask storage review to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Until March, Volz was director of public advocacy at the Department of Public Service, which strongly has supported the dry cask storage plan.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 19, 2005
POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Ensign makes New Orleans latest pet project
Nevada senator hoping to use his political and veterinary skills to call attention to plight of animals in wake of Hurricane Katrina
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
With attorneys making up more than half of its membership, the U.S. Senate might learn a thing or two from Nevada's citizen lawmaker.
The Silver State's junior senator, John Ensign, plans a side trip to Louisiana wearing his other hat -- Dr. Ensign, the veterinarian.
Last week, Ensign and fellow GOP Sen. Rick Santorum wrote to President Bush urging an immediate and coordinated rescue of pets abandoned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Ensign's plans are to visit the region to call attention to the plight of the pets. The trip could kick off as early as today, but logistical concerns were expected to delay it a while. Ensign's staff said the senator very much wants to visit.
Ensign opened the first 24 hour vet clinic in Las Vegas before he was elected to Congress and has led the way in the Senate to call attention to animal welfare issues. He led the way to ban cockfighting and this week plans to introduce an amendment to ban the slaughter of horses for food.
Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, said there's been support from individual troops in the National Guard and Coast Guard and from other responding agencies.
He said though his group and others, like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, are on the ground in the gulf region going door to door, the effort needs national coordination.
"We know that his presence there as a veterinarian and a legislative leader will send a strong message," Markarian said. "He's a compassionate person. He cares about animal welfare, and he has been a leader on those issues in the Senate."
Just the facts
There are facts some politicians seem to ignore, and then there are others they don't want forgotten.
Last week, when University Regent Jill Derby announced she was running for Congress in the 2nd District, she sent a lengthy press release which somehow omitted the fact she's a Democrat.
Was it just a mistake?
The 2nd District has 181,845 Republicans and 135,051 Democrats.
In contrast, Sen. Dina Titus would love people to remember her pitched battle against developer Jim Rhodes in the 2003 session when she succeeded in tightening development standards in the Red Rock National Conservation Area.
Rhodes last week sued the state and the Legislative Commission seeking to throw out Titus' law.
So it was with a dose of irony that Titus reacted to the lawsuit saying: "I'm not going to take any campaign contributions from him."
Not as if he would even donate. But Titus went one further, imploring other candidates not to take his money.
The statement serves as a reminder not just of the Red Rock law, but of Rhodes' past campaign finance activities.
In 2002, he bankrolled Erin Kenny's bid for lieutenant governor to the tune of nearly $200,000.
After Kenny lost and subsequently pleaded guilty to federal public corruption charges in connection with regulating local strip clubs, Rhodes' cash was seen as something akin to a strip club donation. A candidate risked creating a campaign issue if they took it.
Since Titus isn't in line for any of that money, she won't have to worry about it.
EPA under fire
Nevada politicians believe the Environmental Protection Agency is insensitive to the state's public health.
Now, one lawmaker found the EPA is insensitive to religious observances, too.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., asked the EPA to add another public hearing in Las Vegas to discuss the new radiation standard for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, because the first hearing was scheduled during Rosh Hashanah.
The holiday begins at sundown on Oct. 3 and continues through Oct. 5. After Berkley, who is Jewish, complained, the EPA added another hearing for Oct. 6.
The hearings in Las Vegas will take place at Cashman Field Center, 850 N. Las Vegas Blvd., on Oct. 4, beginning at 4 p.m., and on Oct. 5 and 6, beginning at 10 a.m.
Familiar names, faces
The politicking watch continues.
Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor next year, issued a press release last week hyping news that Reno-Tahoe's airport was selected by Air China as a place to divert cargo flights if weather in San Francisco doesn't permit landings.
"This is exciting news and an important step in my efforts to bring direct airline flights between China and Nevada," the press release stated.
She's not the only state official putting their name in the public's mind.
Treasurer Brian Krolicki, who is running for lieutenant governor, is on television with a commercial encouraging parents to enroll in college savings programs through his office.
He even plays with a boy who's caught a frog.
Caucus at Caesars
The Caucus of African American Nevadans will hold a reception Oct. 1 with Rep. Mel Watt, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Watt, D-N.C., will discuss the Voting Rights Act, the caucus's national agenda and the "Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act."
The event, sponsored by Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Harrah's Entertainment, will be at 1 p.m. at Caesars Palace in the Tiberius Room. Tickets are $40. For information, call 858-7945.
Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or ENeff@reviewjournal.com.
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Boston Globe
September 19, 2005
Board travels south for hearing on dry cask storage
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. --The state Public Service Board is inviting comments from the public on Vermont Yankee's plan to store high-level radioactive waste on the grounds of the plant in Vernon.
The board has scheduled a site visit for Tuesday at the plant to view the area where Entergy Nuclear, Vermont Yankee's owner, hopes to install concrete and steel dry casks for storing the waste.
On Tuesday at 7 p.m., the board has scheduled a public hearing on the proposal at Brattleboro Union High School.
Vermont Yankee officials say they are running out of room to store the highly radioactive waste in the plant's spent fuel storage pool, and that the plant will be forced to shut down in 2007 or 2008 if it is not allowed to expand its storage to the dry casks.
The need for additional storage arises because federal plans for a permanent waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been tied up in litigation.
Vermont Yankee has said its plan is to take the oldest and least radioactive waste from the storage pool and move it to the dry casks, making more room for newer waste in the pool.
The dry casks have been billed as a temporary solution until a permanent waste site is opened. The spent fuel storage pool also was described as being for temporary storage of the waste when the plant opened 33 years ago.
The Public Service Board is a three-member, quasi-judicial board that reviews all matters energy and ratepayer related. The board will decide whether the dry cask storage plan is in the best interest of the state.
The board's chairman, James Volz, will not be involved in the decision. He announced last week he would step aside from the case to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. Until March, Volz was director of public advocacy in the Department of Public Service, which has strongly backed the dry cask storage plan.
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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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