Yucca Mountain News Clips - Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 28, 2005

EPA extends comment on Yucca safety

Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday announced it will accept public comments on proposed Yucca Mountain radiation safety standards for an additional 30 days.

The official comment period is being extended to Nov. 21, the agency announced in a Federal Register notice.

The EPA has scheduled public hearings at Amargosa Valley on Oct. 3, and in Las Vegas on Oct. 4-6. A hearing in Washington will be held on Oct. 11.

The agency is extending the comment period in recognition of "the high level of interest in Yucca Mountain."

"It is important to allow adequate time for public information to readily reach more rural areas," the EPA said.

Nevada leaders had lobbied for a longer comment period.

The EPA in August proposed new radiation safety limits for the nuclear waste repository the Department of Energy plans to build at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The EPA proposed a unique two-part standard, with one set of limits for the first 10,000 years of repository operation and a second set for the succeeding years.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 28, 2005

Nevada files opposition to Yucca rail corridor

Associated Press

The federal Energy Department hasn't laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada argues in a statement opposing the plan.

"It's poor planning and the wrong agency is in charge," Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday of the Energy Department plan to build a railroad to haul radioactive waste across the state.

Loux filed a seven-page letter Friday opposing the Energy Department proposal to withdraw 308,600 acres from public use across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties.

"Apart from causing impacts and disruption to existing land users, the proposed action has the potential to negatively affect the environment, grazing allotments, mining and energy development activities, property values, the economy, important cultural resources and more," the state said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 27, 2005

GROUNDWORK CRITICIZED : DOE land use plan disputed

Nevada officials question proposed rail corridor that leads to Yucca Mountain

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has not laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada officials said. The DOE plan for a 308,600-acre land withdrawal across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties will have broad impacts that have not been studied adequately, state officials said in a formal statement.

The proposed action "is not just any land withdrawal," the state said in a seven-page critique signed by Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

The commentary was submitted as the Department of Energy nears the end of a 30-day public comment period on the proposed land withdrawal.

DOE held public hearings this month in rural Nevada. As of Monday, the department received 30 comments on its proposal, spokesman Allen Benson said.

The Energy Department proposes to forbid new mining claims and prevent the Bureau of Land Management from selling property on the parcels that would be withdrawn for a period of 10 years.

The land to be withdrawn is a mile wide and stretches roughly 300 miles from Caliente to the Yucca site. Current mining claims, grazing permits, water rights and public access would not be affected, federal officials have said.

In its environmental assessment, DOE projected minimal disruptions from the land withdrawal. It said engineers plan to photograph land features and conduct field surveys to narrow down specific routes for a nuclear waste railroad line.

Nevada called on DOE to withdraw its assessment and conduct a full environmental impact study of the land withdrawal.

The state also argued the Energy Department should step aside and allow the BLM and rail experts at the Surface Transportation Board to conduct the needed studies.

"Expecting DOE to objectively and comprehensively assess the impacts of this action is like permitting the fox to report on the safety and security of the chicken coop," the state said.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 27, 2005

Nevada files opposition to Yucca rail corridor land restrictions

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The federal Energy Department hasn't laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada argues in a statement opposing the plan.

Loux filed a seven-page letter Friday opposing the Energy Department proposal to withdraw 308,600 acres from public use across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties. Public comments end Wednesday.

The state also argued the Energy Department should let the Bureau of Land Management and the federal Surface Transportation Board conduct the needed studies, and called on the department to withdraw its assessment and conduct a full environmental impact study.

The department held public hearings this month in rural Nevada, and as of Monday had received 30 comments on its proposal, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said.

The plan is to remove from public use a mile-wide swath stretching 319 miles, dubbed the Caliente Corridor. The Energy Department proposes to forbid new mining claims and prevent the BLM from selling property on the parcels that would be withdrawn for 10 years.

Federal officials have said current mining claims, grazing permits, water rights and public access would not be affected.

In its environmental assessment, the Energy Department projected minimal disruptions from the land withdrawal. It said engineers plan to photograph land features and conduct field surveys to narrow specific routes for the nuclear waste railroad.

No rail line currently runs to the site the Bush administration and Congress picked in 2002 to entomb 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste now stored at nuclear reactors and military facilities in 39 states.

The Energy Department announced in April 2004 that it intends to build the rail line from Caliente, a small town 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to the Yucca Mountain site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Department estimates have put the cost at $880 million.

Arguments are scheduled Oct. 18 in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on a state request to halt planning for the rail line until more studies are done.

---On the Net:

Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov

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Heartland Institute
September 27, 2005

Hollywood Targets Nuclear Storage Facility

Written By: James M. Taylor

Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Opponents of the Goshute Indians' plans to build a state-of-the-art nuclear storage facility on their Utah desert reservation flew a small group of activist celebrities to Washington, DC on July 25 to lobby members of Congress to block the Native Americans' project.

Anti-Goshute lobbying efforts have intensified as, supported by federal safety reviews, the tribe is on the verge of obtaining a federal permit to store spent nuclear fuel until a permanent facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain is certified. The Yucca Mountain facility is scheduled to be ready in 2010, subject to the outcome of current legal challenges.

In 1987, Goshute tribal leaders signed a contract to set aside a small portion of their reservation for the construction of an advanced-technology storage facility. The tribe will receive $3 billion for hosting the facility, and it expects additional economic benefits from continuing operation of the facility.

Opposition from Afar

Nevertheless, antinuclear activists who have no direct stake in the facility or the region are stepping up pressure to deny the Goshutes the right to house the facility on their land. The July 25 Washington protest and celebrity lobbying campaign, for example, was notable for its absence of anybody remotely connected to Utah.

Ohio congressman and failed 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich hosted a July 25 press conference with punk rocker Ani DeFranco, singers Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, and actor James Cromwell. The celebrities visited with non-Goshute and non-Utah legislators and staff in an effort to enlist the federal government in blocking the Goshute plans.

"We ask people to stand in solidarity with Native American people against nuclear waste dumping," said Ray, according to the July 26 Salt Lake Tribune, apparently forgetting the Goshute tribe was seeking to build the facility rather than block it.

"We cannot allow this trampling of Native American rights," added Kucinich, in apparent opposition to the Goshutes.

"Anyone who is trying to tell me that radioactive waste is clean is lying to me," added DiFranco.

Utah Perspective Contradicts Celebrities

Salt Lake City columnist Ted McDonough gave a contrasting, more local perspective to the Hollywood lobbying blitz.

"Nearly every objection raised to the project's federal permit has been dismissed by federal nuclear regulators," wrote McDonough in the August 11 Salt Lake City Weekly. "As the project moves ever closer to an expected federal permit this summer, Utah's congressional delegation is attempting increasingly desperate measures, from designating the area around the proposed above-ground storage site as wilderness to stalling the plan through a terrorist threat study."

Referring to the Hollywood protesters as "a few B-list celebrities," McDonough noted the protesters' lack of success so far. A similar effort to make an end-run appeal to Interior Secretary Gale Norton is also likely to fail, reported McDonough.

"The state has every opportunity to fight the project on a scientific and legal basis. That ought to be enough. To ask the Department of the Interior not to sign off on the lease seems to me to be an infringement on the sovereign rights of the Goshute Indians," said Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, the company that is constructing and operating the facility for the Goshutes, as reported by McDonough.

Goshutes Emphasize Safety

On their tribal Web site, the Goshutes stress their decision is based on scientific assessments showing little risk of health or safety concerns.

"Static storage of shielded containers of spent fuel is one of the least challenging problems for health and safety," the tribal Web site notes. "The spent fuel is solid, and if the condition of the fuel changes at all, it will change slowly. This makes radiation monitoring especially simple. If a mistake is suspected, there is ample time to correct it.

"The risks attributable to a waste storage facility are also smaller than the risks of living in Salt Lake City," observes the Goshute Web site. "For example, the risk of particulate air pollution is one of the largest risks to the American people. A simple visual inspection shows that the particulate concentration is less in Skull Valley than in Salt Lake City."

Celebs Ignore Tribal Interests

Another important benefit of the facility has often been overlooked, according to the tribal Web site: "This proposed facility is likely to make it financially attractive for many more of the Skull Valley Band to live on their reservation" and preserve tribal heritage.

"Dennis Kucinich is making a mistake if he thinks he can resurrect his failed presidential bid by pandering to the ultraliberal wing of his party," said Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Calling in entertainers to pose as scientists and policy analysts simply does not bode well for one's credibility.

"Defending those who don't want defense is the defining characteristic of the far left," Burnett added. "Whenever somebody says 'We know what's better for you than you do,' people wisely hide their wallets and keep a close eye on their freedoms. The Goshute nation is a sovereign entity, and so long as the depository meets federal health and safety standards, then the Goshutes should be able to make up their own minds regarding what is in their best interests."

James M. Taylor (taylor@heartland.org) is managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

For more information on the Goshute tribe's nuclear storage plans, visit the tribal Web site at http://www.skullvalleygoshutes.org.

More information on nuclear power and spent fuel storage is available through PolicyBot™, The Heartland Institute's free online research database. Point your Web browser to http://www.heartland.org, click on the PolicyBot™ button, and select the topic/subtopic combination Environment/Nuclear Power.

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Las Vegas SUN
September 26, 2005

Editorial: Shining a light on nuke dump

Las Vegas Sun

The state of Nevada has won a victory in its efforts to get the U.S. Energy Department to release a draft license application to build a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel has ruled that the Energy Department can no longer keep secret the 5,800-page draft application. Although it's not the final document that will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, lawyers for Nevada say it will be extraordinarily helpful once the state receives it because the draft application will reveal what direction the Energy Department will be taking in trying to get the dump approved.

The Energy Department has vigorously fought attempts by state officials and Nevada's congressional delegation as they tried to get a copy of the draft application, with Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., likening it to "pulling teeth." The reason for the Energy Department's stonewalling is simple: It wants to steamroll its application through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- the regulatory agency that will have the final say on Yucca Mountain -- without giving Nevada officials enough time to raise substantive scientific objections to the proposed dump. There have been serious questions raised about the project, including the danger of shipping nuclear waste thousands of miles cross-country to burying it in a seismically active location, where concerns have been raised that the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste planned for the dump might leak into the environment .

The desperate attempt by the Energy Department to keep such important information from seeing the light of day is proof that the agency is worried about the viability of the Yucca Mountain project, which recently has been beset by regulatory and legal setbacks. Why, otherwise, would it be so afraid to let the public take a look at its draft application to open a nuclear waste dump?

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St. George Daily Spectrum
September 26, 2005

Senators get lesson on trust

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch

Utah offices - Room 2 Washington County Administration Building, 197 E. Tabernacle, St. George, UT 84770; (435) 634-1795; Fax: (435) 634-1796.

Post Office Box 99; 2390 W. Highway 56, Cedar City, UT 84720; (435) 586-8435; Fax: (435) 586-2147.

Washington office - 104 Hart Senate Office Building. Washington, D.C. 20510; 202-224-5251; Fax: 202-224-6331. E-mail available via Web site: www.senate.gov/~hatch/

Sen. Robert F. Bennett

Utah Offices - 196 E. Tabernacle, Suite 24; St. George, UT 84770-3474; (435) 628-5514; Fax: (435) 624-4160.

2390 W. Highway 56, Suite 4B; Cedar City, UT 84720; (435) 865-1335; Fax: (435) 865-1481.

Washington Office - 431 Dirksen Building, Washington, D.C. 20510-4403, 202-224-5444; Fax: 202-224-4908. E-mail: senator@bennett.senate.gov

Many years ago, Southern Utah found out that the government's assurances about fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada couldn't be trusted. Just days ago, Utah's senators found out that promises by the Bush administration to keep nuclear waste out of the Beehive State couldn't be relied upon, either.

We thank Sen. Bennett for speaking out against the plan last week. We thank Sen. Hatch for beginning the process of using legislation to keep the nuclear waste out of Utah.

But it shouldn't have come to this.

In 2002, Bennett and Hatch voted in favor of sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nev., in exchange for a promise by the Bush administration that nuclear waste would not be sent to Skull Valley Goshute tribal lands, located just 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

While the decision may have been a good one for Utahns on the Wasatch Front, it was not necessarily in the best interests of Southern Utahns, since it would mean we were more likely to have nuclear waste trucked through our communities on the way to Yucca Mountain, which isn't all that far away from Washington County when one thinks of distances in nuclear terms.

This editorial board voiced steep opposition to the deal in July of 2002 by pointing out that the government has a poor track record for keeping its promises. Unfortunately, our fears have come to fruition.

It was never a good idea to ship nuclear waste to either Skull Valley or Yucca Mountain for storage, but Hatch and Bennett were willing to accept one if it meant the other got crossed off the list. However, the deal between the senators and the Bush administration broke down Sept. 9 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 3-1 to allow nuclear waste to be stored at Skull Valley.

Sen. Bennett admitted his mistake on the floor of the Senate and vowed that he would join with Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign to try to keep nuclear waste out of Yucca Mountain. Bennett also put forward the sensible solution that nuclear waste should be kept where it is produced so that it can be reprocessed. Hatch hasn't joined Reid's camp yet, but he is pushing for legislation to keep nuclear waste out of Utah.

Everyone makes mistakes. What is important is to learn from them. Hopefully, our senators have discovered what many suspected in 2002: A deal made with the government today is one that will be forgotten tomorrow.

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Salt Lake Tribune
September 26, 2005

Stand against waste

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his staff will be using every legal means possible to try and stop Private Fuel Storage's attempts to bring plutonium rods to the Goshute Reservation in Skull Valley. Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch must join with Gov. Huntsman to find a way to halt the placement of the storage facility in Utah.

There is nothing safe about storing plutonium in above-ground casks which could become terrorist targets. Just because the current testing to try and blow up these casks has not damaged them does not mean that terrorists don't already have the means to do the job.

These plutonium rods will travel by rail and can contaminate and kill anything in their path in our cities, rural farmlands or wilderness areas that are adjacent to picturesque towns. This site is so close to densely populated Salt Lake City that it would have devastating consequences for the entire community should any type of terrorist attack, leak or accident occur on-site. And remember that none of the nuclear waste that would be stored at this facility was generated in Utah.

Because there may never be any storage at the Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada, we must all be willing to join together now and speak out about this dangerous proposal before Utah becomes the nation's repository for nuclear waste.

Diane Mellen
Park City

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KSL-TV
September 26, 2005

Seeing the Light

Utah Senator Bob Bennett has finally seen the light.

Whether for genuine scientific reasons or political reality, he has joined the chorus of Utah and Nevada political leaders who realize it is best to keep the nation´s nuclear waste where it is right now, until a coherent energy policy is formulated to deal with the stuff.

It is the same position the KSL Editorial Board adopted several years ago after initially supporting the Yucca Mountain plan.

As Senator Bennett said in a speech on the Senate floor last week, “it doesn´t make sense . . . to move the material all across the country to store it in Yucca Mountain for the purposes of ending storage in place, and then have storage in place come back.’

And, we add, it doesn´t make sense to establish a so-called temporary storage site in Utah´s Skull Valley while the nation´s nuclear waste policy is so disturbingly uncertain.

Now is time for Senator Orrin Hatch to see the light, as well. It is time he join Senator Bennett and their colleagues from Nevada in aggressively opposing Yucca Mountain, along with Skull Valley. And it is time they work together to convince Congress and the Administration to get busy and find a realistic long-term solution to the nation´s nuclear waste conundrum.

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Toledo Blade
September 26, 2005

Davis-Besse waste slated for tribal site

By Tom Henry
Blade Staff Writer

Spent reactor fuel from the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ottawa County could be en route to tribal land in Utah within three years if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's recent authorization of a storage license stands up in court.

In a 3-1 vote, a majority of NRC commissioners ordered the agency's staff to prepare a license for Private Fuel Storage LLC to build and operate a storage facility on a reservation owned by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians.

In so doing, the NRC's top brass rejected Utah's argument that the public stands an unreasonable risk of being exposed to radiation by up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel that could be stored in bunkers on the reservation for up to 40 years.

Though Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman vows to challenge the NRC's decision in a federal appeals court, Private Fuel Storage believes it has won a big battle in its quest to help utilities get spent fuel off their nuclear complexes.

The decision also opens the possibility of having other nuclear plants east of Toledo put their highly radioactive waste on the Ohio Turnpike sooner than anticipated.

Private Fuel Storage is an eight-utility consortium to which FirstEnergy Corp. belongs.

Although those eight utilities have funded the consortium since it was formed in the fall of 1996, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the first in line to send their waste to the West, said Sue Martin, a Private Fuel Storage spokesman.

The group will court other utilities as well.

"The next thing we have to do is market the facility. We have to round up enough customers to make the project viable," she said.

Richard Wilkins, a FirstEnergy spokesman, called it a contingency move for Davis-Besse and other nuclear plants the utility owns.

Davis-Besse, which was opened in 1977, is the nuclear plant under FirstEnergy's corporate umbrella that is most pressed for space. The utility's predecessor, Toledo Edison Co., spent $5 million in the mid-1990s to remove some of the decaying fuel assemblies in Davis-Besse's spent fuel pool. They were encapsulated outdoors in storage bunkers and put under 24-hour surveillance.

The Nuclear Energy Institute estimates 78 of the nation's 103 nuclear plants could fill their spent fuel pools by the end of the decade, forcing them to either move waste or shut down.

Detroit Edison Co.'s Fermi II nuclear plant in northern Monroe County is a decade younger than Davis-Besse and says it has enough room in its spent fuel pool to continue putting waste there until 2010.

On a national scale, the space crunch has evolved into something the government didn't want to see happen: Decentralized storage of the only material in civilian hands that's classified as high-level radioactive waste.

Questions about what to do with tons of decaying fuel from the nation's 103 commercial nuclear reactors have long been one of the greatest impediments for an industry that wants to expand. The government was supposed to start accepting the waste at a single repository by Jan. 31, 1998.

The U.S. Department of Energy for years has focused on Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a dry and isolated area between Las Vegas and California's Death Valley. As part of the government's Nevada Test Site once used to test nuclear bombs, Yucca Mountain remains under military control.

Utilities, frustrated over the research and development pace at Yucca Mountain, got restless.

A lease that the consortium privately negotiated with the Skull Valley Goshute Indian tribe in Utah calls for use of their domestic sovereign land at an undisclosed price. The license to be issued by the NRC will be valid for 20 years, with an option for a 20-year extension.

Private Fuel Storage has just about everything in place except for final approval on the proposed lease from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and authorization from the Bureau of Land Management for a 32-mile rail spur, Ms. Martin said.

The consortium would like to start construction within a year and have the facility operating in 2008, she said.

In addition to Utah politicians, it will face opposition from residents and environmental groups. Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's energy program, called the consortium's effort an "unnecessary, irresponsible, and unethical proposal."

The Goshute reservation is 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, but only 11 miles from one of the nation's largest military test and bombing ranges where pilots at Hill Air Force Base are trained to fly F-16 fighter jets.

Opponents claim the possibility of jets crashing into the concrete-and-steel bunkers poses an unacceptable risk of radiation exposure to the public.

The site will be allowed to hold up to 4,000 such vaults, each holding an individual canister of spent reactor fuel.

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.

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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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