Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 04, 2005
NRC appeals posting draft Yucca document on the Internet
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- An order for the Department of Energy to post to the Internet its draft license application for Yucca Mountain was appealed on Monday.
Staff members for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission challenged the reasoning of a three-judge panel that sought to clarify the definition of draft paperwork for the proposed nuclear waste repository.
The judges said the Energy Department's 5,800-page draft license document met the definition and was required to be disclosed.
The NRC staff based its appeal on legal and technical grounds involving the order. It said it was not siding for or against the Department of Energy on the merits. The distinction was made because the NRC is supposed to stay neutral on Yucca Mountain for now.
Meanwhile Monday evening, attorneys for DOE were putting the finishing touches on an appeal of their own that was to be filed later that night, department spokesman Allen Benson said.
The appeals, filed with the commissioners who oversee the NRC, ratchet up the legal dispute initiated by the state of Nevada over access to Yucca Mountain documents.
State attorneys argued they were entitled to a copy of the draft license application as part of a cache of more than 3 million Yucca Mountain documents the Energy Department is posting to a special electronic network as part of the licensing process.
Nevada officials said the document is expected to contain clues as to whether the Energy Department can argue that Yucca Mountain is a safe location for nuclear waste disposal.
The document reportedly contains about 70 chapters consisting of analysis models and reports laying out the government's repository plan.
Lawyers for the Energy Department resisted, arguing the license application in draft form did not fit the standards to be put on the electronic database.
In its appeal, the NRC staff said the ruling would create extra work for the agency because it would have to review whether it held additional documents that would need to be posted under the new definition of a draft.
The NRC has posted about 25,000 documents to the Internet.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 04, 2005
YUCCA MOUNTAIN HEARING: Residents not worried
Increase in radiation not a concern, say two people who live in Amargosa Valley
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
AMARGOSA VALLEY -- The two people who testified at Monday's public hearing on the proposed radiation safety standard for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository had one thing in common: They're not worried about radioactive dangers because they've lived in the shadow of the Nevada Test Site for many years.
So, if they can survive 41 years of detonating more than 900 nuclear bombs, then they can endure 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and highly radioactive waste tucked away inside the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It doesn't matter, they said, if it's there for 10,000 or even 1 million years.
"This community has very little concern about the increase in radiation," Jan Cameron, chairwoman of the Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board, said after making her comments to Environmental Protection Agency officials who traveled to this community of 1,400, the closest to the mountain.
"There is really very little likelihood of danger from Yucca Mountain," she said. "It doesn't mean there shouldn't be monitoring and they shouldn't be keeping an eye on it."
In testimony, she told the EPA panel that setting a 10,000-year standard "is iffy -- to try to define a standard for a million years passes ridiculous."
Similarly, Amargosa Valley's Ken Garey said the exposure cap the EPA has proposed in its two-tiered standard is really just a tad above what the community gets each day from background radiation from natural sources, cosmic rays and what's already been put in the environment from man-made sources.
To satisfy a court ruling, the EPA issued a standard in August for 10,000 and 1 million years. The dose limits were set at 15 millirem and 350 millirem per year, respectively, above background levels.
For comparison, a chest X-ray exposes a patient to 10 millirem while a mammogram results in a 30 millirem exposure.
Adding another 15 millirem to the 110 millirem that Garey said is based on actual background measurements in Amargosa Valley "is insignificant compared to the other risks we accept and take."
The figure from Garey, a test site consultant, differs from the 350 millirem that EPA uses for its background radiation levels for Amargosa Valley. The 350-millirem figure is based on a statewide average that factors in exposures from naturally occurring radon gas.
Despite the opinions expressed at the hearing by Cameron and Garey, four others who spoke at a round-table discussion preceding the hearing were highly skeptical of the EPA's plan. They said they intend to challenge the proposed standard in written comments and upcoming hearings today through Thursday at the Cashman Center in Las Vegas.
Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant to the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said the EPA's proposal is a step backward. The long-term standard is far less protective in the distant future when radioactive materials carrying peak doses are expected to leak into the environment.
"This is the first time they've ever reversed themselves on the idea of 'Don't pass risks to future generations that you're not willing to accept for this generation,' " Frishman said.
"This is a policy break necessitated by Yucca Mountain," he said.
Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a group critical of the program, agreed.
"I think they've colluded with the (Department of Energy) and (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) on this whole thing," she said after the roundtable discussion.
"For the U.S, government to say that it is perfectly fine for people to receive doses equal to a chest X-ray every week, from the moment of conception, throughout their lives is simply crazy and dangerous."
During the discussion, Frishman said the EPA is knuckling under to the whim of the Energy Department.
"You need to set a standard that DOE has to provide credible scientific analysis that it can be met," he said.
Jennifer Viereck of Tecopa, Calif., said she is bewildered by the EPA setting an arbitrary standard that doesn't consider future cancer cases.
"I can't imagine you giving us this recommendation without doing risk calculations," she said.
Corbin Harney of the Western Shoshone tribe questioned the integrity behind the EPA's proposed standard.
"I want to know for sure if we're going to tell the truth," he said. "We can not be telling each other fibs."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 04, 2005
Republican lawyer launches campaign for attorney general
By Erin Neff
Review-Journal
Las Vegas attorney George Chanos formally applied Monday for a job he already knows he'll get later this year.
The Republican business litigator formally launched his campaign at UNLV for Nevada attorney general like someone who already has the job.
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Flanked by Sen. John Ensign, Congressman Jon Porter and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, Chanos said he was confident he was the "best lawyer" for the job.
"I offer my services to the people of the state of Nevada," Chanos said outside the Boyd Law School on the campus where he served as student body president in 1981.
On Monday morning in Reno, Chanos was joined by Gov. Kenny Guinn, who will appoint him attorney general when Brian Sandoval is confirmed by the U.S. Senate for a job on the federal court in Reno.
In his speech at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Chanos asked plenty of questions about the state's most pressing needs. In fact, most of his speech was spent asking how the state can protect its citizens, remain a sovereign entity and root out public corruption and graft.
He posed numerous questions concerning water, energy, government, crime and education.
How, he asked, can children be protected from sexual predators, seniors from identity theft, and the state's residents from terrorist acts.
"These are just some of the issues we as a state will be dealing with," he said. "I by no means claim to have all the answers."
In an interview after the speech, Chanos said it is not fair to comment on how Sandoval has handled the state's issues, or offer his own views on the direction of the office.
"If you want to ask me that in a couple of months, that would be fine," he said, adding that he wanted time to get into the job and learn about the office first hand. "I'll move forward and execute what I ultimately determine is the best way to address those issues."
His wife, Adriana Escobar Chanos, is the chief deputy attorney general in charge of the Bureau of Consumer Protection -- the state's consumer advocate. She plans to step down from her post when her husband takes the job to avoid any perception of conflict of interest.
The campaign launch is important so Chanos can raise money and his profile for the election 13 months away. Democrat Catherine Cortez-Masto, a former assistant manager in Clark County, has begun campaigning for the seat.
Chanos hinted that his administration will make abuse of public trust a focus. He also said he planned to litigate important cases for the state.
Chanos has a law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. He has worked in the Finley Kumble law firm's San Diego office and has focused his Las Vegas practice on business litigation and commercial practices. He has no criminal law background.
In the interview, Chanos said the biggest issue facing Nevada is its suit against the federal government seeking to halt construction of a nuclear waste repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"George is committed to taking that battle to Washington, D.C., as we continue the fight against Yucca Mountain," Porter said.
He said he believed the state of Nevada should file friend of the court briefs in cases relevant to the state's issues, and said he considers himself a student of the law and not an ideologue.
Chanos said he thought Chief Justice John Roberts was a great choice for the U.S. Supreme Court, and he characterized as mistakes recent court rulings dealing a setback to medical marijuana patients and expanding the rights of local governments in eminent domain cases.
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KVBC
October 04, 2005
Voice Your Opinion On Yucca Mountain
If you have a strong opinion either for or against the Yucca Mountain Repository, this week is your opporutnity to voice your feelings.
Public hearings for the Yucca Mountain Repository are slated to take place in Las Vegas this week with the focus centered on radiation standards. The public hearings are scheduled for today and Wednesday at the Cashman Center in rooms 203 through 206. Information sessions are set to run from 4pm to 5:30. A public hearing is scheduled from 7pm to nine. Another information session and public hearing is set for Wednesday morning at 10.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 04, 2005
Vegas lawyer to seek full term as state attorney general
By Brendan Riley
Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Las Vegas lawyer George Chanos, who Gov. Kenny Guinn will appoint as attorney general once the incumbent, Brian Sandoval, is confirmed as a federal judge, announced Monday he'll be a candidate in 2006 for a four-year term in the state post.
Chanos, a Republican, held news conferences in Las Vegas and Reno to detail his plans, both as an appointee for the remaining year or so of Sandoval's term and if elected next year to a full term as attorney general.
In a telephone interview, Chanos said his first priority would be to complete a "needs assessment" to determine how various state agencies feel about the legal representation they're getting from the attorney general's office, and what improvements are needed.
"Then I would execute on those improvements, whether for Gaming Control or Transportation or any other agency or board or commission," Chanos said, adding that his goal is "to try to build the office into the best law firm in the state of Nevada."
Chanos also said he'd "absolutely" enforce the state's open meeting laws, work to preserve access to public information and press for "integrity in government and the need for transparency and accountability."
Another main goal would be to continue the state's long-running legal battle against the federal government's efforts to operate a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada, Chanos said.
Nearly 90 percent of Nevada's land is owned by the federal government, and "given those realities, the issue of state sovereignty is one of the most important issues to the state," he said.
While getting the appointment to the remainder of Sandoval's term should give Chanos an edge over other candidates in the 2006 elections, he won't get a free ride. Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto also is running, and she has the support of many top Democrats including U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, former Sen. Richard Bryan, former Gov. Bob Miller and former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa.
Chanos, 47, grew up in Las Vegas, graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and later worked for former U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt in Washington, D.C.
He graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1985 and practiced law in San Diego until opening a law office with his wife in Las Vegas in 1995.
In his law practice he has focused on business litigation and also has represented the Clark County Republican Party as well as the state GOP.
Sandoval was nominated in March by President Bush to be a U.S. District Court judge in Nevada, and last week breezed through a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. A recommendation from the panel to the full Senate could come as early as this week.
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LaCrosse Tribune
October 04, 2005
Your views for Tuesday
Dangers of nuclear power
By Gail Vaughn
Ferryville, Wis.
Like Utah Gov. John Huntsman, I was deeply disappointed by the NRC's Sept. 9 approval of a license for a high-level nuclear dump in Skull Valley, Utah. I was also deeply disappointed by Dairyland Power's being "pleased" with this outcome (La Crosse Tribune, Sept. 10, 2005).
Dairyland Power and Xcel Energy are part of a private consortium, Private Fuel Storage, that wants to send many rail shipments of highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods out West. They are targeting the reservation of the tiny Indian tribe of the Skull Valley Goshute. These 124 tribe members are supposed to caretake tons of dangerous fuel rods.
PFS plans to park the waste there "temporarily" until the Yucca Mountain Repository opens. But this repository might never open.
They plan to put millions of people at risk by shipping 4,000 dangerous waste casks down the tracks, through densely-populated neighborhoods. How can they protect the public from a horrific rail accident? Who will pay the costs?
The state of Utah, which has no nuclear reactors, is adamantly opposed to this scheme. Utah is using every legal means possible to fight it.
Please contact your utilities and tell them you want our radioactive waste handled in a more responsible manner. Also thank Dairyland Power for closing their reactor years ago. If only Xcel would do the same.
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Nevada Observer
October 03, 2005
Yucca Mountain Proposals Getting Curiouser And Curiouser
DOE and NRC Seem Unwilling To Want Concept Of Good Science In Program
Former supporters of the federal attempt to create a single repository for nuclear waste developed from the manufacture of nuclear energy are bailing on the project. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has created radiation standards below anything in the world. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an arm of the energy companies that use nuclear energy in the their development of electricity totally supports the EPA. Department of Energy (DOE) officials more than just slow in meeting congressional demands for documents; some say the word should be sluggish.
One of those in Congress who was considered a strong supporter of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository is Utah Senator Bennett. He made an impassioned speech before the Senate recently and said he no longer supports the concept. "If we're going to have a single repository for nuclear waste, it appeared that the logical place to put it was Yucca Mountain," he said.
"It is now clear that we are not going to have a single repository for nuclear waste." His comment came following testimony that the nuclear energy sites across the country, those that exist now and those that are in the process of being built will generate more high level nuclear waste than the repository in Nevada could ever hold.
The senator said, "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."
Bennett said the logical conclusion is for the high level waste to be stored at the various production sites. That is what is happening right now, and he feels it is the best. "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. 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?
One of the most serious questions that have come up dealing with the storage of the casks is the infiltration of ground water and whether or not the casks could withstand thousands of years of water movement around and over them. United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologists working on a DOE contract have been under congressional review following disclosure of e-mails that give the impression that two sets of books were maintained dealing with water infiltration and its effects on the casks.
One set of the books reportedly were legitimate and may have held information detrimental to DOE's efforts while the other set of books said the things about water infiltration that DOE wanted the public and congress to know about.
Nevada Congressman Jon Porter's subcommittee has been demanding information from DOE and they have been putting him off for months. According to Porter's office, almost 5,000 pages of information have been brought to the committee recently, "but he is still waiting for the rest."
The DOE is also being vague on when a copy of the draft license application for Yucca Mountain will be delivered to the subcommittee. A court has just demanded the release of the license application. The court said the document is not protected by any deliberative process or privilege. Porter has been demanding those papers as well and they have not been turned over to him.
In the meantime the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, some say they are an arm of the nuclear energy industry, has attempted to issue radiation exposure rules that mimic those issued by the EPA recently. The EPA rules are the least protective standard in the world. Radiation standards issued by the National Academy of Sciences (NAC), a truly scientific organization, not controlled by industry or governmental influence, says the EPA standards exceed their recommended acceptable range of exposure.
The NAC recommends a range of two to 20 millirems per year exposure while EPA's ruling is 17 to 52 times greater. Nuclear power is generated by many nations around the world and exposure limits have been established following many of the guidelines offered by the NAC. The EPA standards are 3.5 to 10.5 times greater which would lead to serious life-threatening problems.
The previous EPA standards were tossed by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. recently and EPA's new standards are less than what was tossed. DOE and NRC support EPA. According to the National Academy of Sciences, "In short, the (new) rule abandons any real radiation protection for citizens to make it expedient for DOE to overcome years of failed practices."
One of the arguments that will be made in upcoming court procedures includes this: the new EPA rule abandons any long-term groundwater protection standard. It is groundwater infiltration that might create danger from failed casks stored underground that are at the head of Nevada's continuing court battles with DOE. It is the possibility of groundwater infiltration that caused Senator Bennett to change his mind and support on site storage of high level nuclear waste.
It is one of the reasons that on site storage is most often used by nuclear power plants in every country around the world. France's power is about 80 percent nuclear generated and Senator Bennett feels that nuclear power generation in this country will become far more prevalent. "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." The Senator, speaking from the floor of the Senate continued, "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."
Bennett said that without a safe means of storage, this country will fall farther and farther behind the rest of the world, and that Americans will be paying a high price for their electrical energy. Besides on site storage, the Senator also called for the reprocessing of the waste. "Reprocessing is too expensive some say. But we know from a past experience that technology will find a way around that." He pointed out that we are already reprocessing nuclear warheads from the old Soviet Union. "As that 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.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval sent a letter to 22 AG's around the country recently. He said in his opening paragraph, "I am writing to alert you to a disturbing proposed rule that, if promulgated, has the clear potential to destabilize the cleanup standards for all Department of Energy facilities, including DOE facilities in your states." Sandoval believes the EPA standards discussed above will undermine the entire process of developing a safe way to store high level nuclear waste.
One of the EPA standards recently suggested, "Assumes it is ethically permissible to expose future generations to radiation far higher than we would tolerate today." By suggesting that underground casks of high level spent nuclear waste might fail sometime after 10,000 years, the EPA standards are such that the radiation leaked into ground water or the air would be as safety standards far less than those acceptable today.
National Academy of Scientists has said the stored nuclear waste would be at its highest level of potential contamination after 100,000 years and up to 250,000 years. Sandoval says, "DOE has provoked great controversy among host states for seeking to loosen its nuclear cleanup standards." The standard has long been 25 millirems per year or less. DOE, according to Sandoval wants that standard to be 100 millirems per year.
"The new EPA standard," Sandoval says in his letter to other Attorneys General, " if promulgated, would drastically relax even that 100 Millirem standard.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 03, 2005
JANE ANN MORRISON: Citizen Alert counting on fear, self-interest to help put a lid on Yucca
Environmental activists at Citizen Alert are hoping to grab your attention (and your money) by drawing parallels about what Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans and what a nuclear waste accident could do to Southern Nevada.
After seeing the flooded streets in New Orleans and streets filled with garbage but empty of people, Citizen Alert celebrates its 30th anniversary with a re-emphasis on people's fears and self-interest.
A recent fundraising letter kicks off: "A threat every bit as large as Hurricane Katrina looms over Nevada -- the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump."
The pictures from New Orleans can't help but make people here imagine what it would be like if something so dramatic occurred that the Strip was emptied of people, whether from a natural disaster or a nuclear accident.
It's not a bad strategy, because fear and self-interest are tactics that clearly work.
In its infancy, Citizen Alert's first major environmental victory was stopping the MX. Odds are you haven't a clue what the MX was.
Citizen Alert formed something called the Great Basin MX Alliance, which in 1981 persuaded President Reagan and Congress to scrap plans for an MX missile system in Nevada. The government's plan was to hide 200 multiwarhead nuclear missiles among 4,600 shelters.
The environmental types didn't like the idea and neither did ranchers and miners, and their unlikely coalition succeeded.
It was heady stuff for a group that was started in 1975 by two women from Northern Nevada, Susan Orr and Katherine Hale, who traveled the state calling for closure of a low-level nuclear waste dump in Beatty. When it closed 20 years later, the group took credit.
More importantly, during that early campaign, they found about 300 people who agreed with them. The heart of the organization was the idea that the federal government had been doing whatever it wanted in Nevada for years, without thinking of how the projects affected Nevadans.
A Citizen Alert bumper sticker created later said it all: Nevada Is Not A Wasteland.
One year after the MX victory, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 passed with the goal of finding a storage site for the nation's nuclear waste, and Nevada was the leading prospect. That kept the group invigorated to keep fighting nuclear waste, this time the high-level nuclear waste planned for Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The group's membership isn't huge, and often the "face" of Citizen Alert is one person. For the past four years, Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson has been that face.
Meanwhile, membership has tripled to 3,000, and the push is on to sign up more.
"Nevadans United to Finish the Job" is the formal name of the Citizen Alert campaign kicking off with a fundraiser Dec. 1. The choice of locations is sweet -- the new Atomic Testing Museum.
Johnson is hoping to raise $500,000 by asking businesses for contributions of $1,000 and $5,000, the largest fundraising effort in Citizen Alert's history.
Once again, and this has been the emphasis for many years, Citizen Alert hopes to gain support across the nation and block nuclear waste in Nevada by focusing on the dangers of transporting it through other states. The goal is to gather national support for a bill expected to be introduced by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to keep storing nuclear waste on-site where it is produced.
Just like the plan to stop the MX, this effort focuses on drawing together diverse groups outside of environmentalists to oppose the Yucca Mountain Project, just like the ranchers and miners did in the MX fight. Johnson wants to build coalitions of people who may not be natural allies but have the same self-interest, whether it's to protect open spaces or protect the Strip.
Johnson's a true believer. For the past year, she hasn't taken her $39,000-a-year salary.
Not long ago, she put in for $1,000 in expenses. Her husband said, laughing, "Not bad for a year's work."
Citizen Alert's critics dismiss the group as a bunch of environmental wackos who receive too much credence from the state's politicians. But nobody should sneer at Citizen Alert's past successes and perseverance for 30 years.
Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at jane@review-journal.com or call 383-0275.
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Baltimore Business Journal
October 03, 2005
Duratek adds fuel to its waste management services
Rebecca Logan
Duratek Inc. is taking its radioactive waste activity up a level.
The Columbia company announced Monday that it has formed a teaming agreement with Alabama-based Trivis Inc. to deal in the movement of dry fuel used in the U.S. nuclear utilities marketplace. The agreement marks Duratek's entry into high-level commercial radioactive waste management services.
"Until now, Duratek's business on the commercial side had been low level -- that involved things like construction materials used in the plant, booties and gloves, metal -- anything that goes inside the radioactive controlled area," said Diane R. Brown, a spokeswoman for Duratek.
This new arrangement involves the licensing, design, construction and operation of independent spent fuel storage installations and services to load spent fuel into dry storage containers. Duratek said the market for spent nuclear fuel dry storage and related services is approximately $100 million over the next five years and could grow significantly when transportation to permanent or temporary storage occurs, Duratek said.
Monday's announcement boosted Duratek stock -- a different picture from recent Duratek announcements, including one in September that sent stocks diving 14 percent to $16.84. Duratek said last month that it expects flat revenues for the year.
Investors dumped shares in February after the company missed analyst earnings estimates. In March, Duratek's announcement that it failed in its bid for a giant Department of Energy contract in Idaho hurt the stock. Another selloff came in July after the company reported lower second-quarter earnings.
But after the announcement Monday morning, Duratek shares (Nasdaq: DRTK) were trading at $18.45, up 18 cents from Friday's close.
Duratek and Trivis also announced Monday the award of their first joint project, for the support of a dry fuel storage campaign later this year at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy Daisy, Tenn. That plant has been operating since 1981 and makes electricity by splitting uranium atoms to make steam.
Duratek CEO Robert Prince said in a statement that the agreement with Trivis marks a milestone for Duratek's growth.
"Our extensive service capabilities and outstanding platform base in support of waste management activities at U.S. nuclear power plants make it a natural progression for us to move into management of high-level waste," Prince said.
Trivis President David Bland said in a statement that there are more than 30 independent spent fuel storage installations in the US. operating as dry fuel storage sites -- a number that he said could double over the next 10 years.
"Because Yucca Mountain is not open, a lot of the utilities are building dry storage pads and they're taking the spent fuel and loading them into containers,'' Brown said.
According to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, spent fuel is first removed from a reactor and placed in a pool of water kept in a steel lined concrete basin. When that is cooled, the containers are either placed upright on concrete pads or stored horizontally in metal canisters in concrete bunkers.
The U.S. Department of Energy began studying Yucca Mountain in Nevada in 1978 as a possible first long-term geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste but there has been considerable debate over regulations and the facility does not yet have a repository license, according to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.
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Madison Courier
October 03, 2005
Nevada Observer - Yucca Mountain Proposals Getting
Sodrel now addressing JPG cleanup
OUR VIEW
Perhaps U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel can succeed where others have failed.
Sodrel has joined a group of House members trying to call attention to the unexploded weapons left behind at closed military bases.
Sodrel´s interest is in the former Jefferson Proving Ground just north of Madison which is included in his congressional district.
The bipartisan group Sodrel has joined was founded by fellow Republicans Don Manzullo of Illinois and George Miller of California and by Democrats Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Sam Farr of California.
We hope that Sodrel can help bring some closure to the JPG cleanup fiasco that has gone on far too long because of the U.S. Army´s failure to accept responsibility for the cleanup.
“By working with my colleagues who represent military sites that have been used for ordnance exercises, we hope to be able to solve some of the long-term challenges facing these communities,’ Sodrel said in a statement.
He said safety, health and environmental issues continue to be a concern at JPG, as well as Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge and Camp Atterbury.
The U.S. Army, showing a total disregard for area residents´ safety, left unexploded ordnance at JPG, where munitions were tested from 1941 to 1994. The testing ground closed 10 years ago.
We´re not talking about a few undetonated bombs. Army reports show about 1.5 million munitions fired for testing and evaluation did not detonate, and about 7 million inert rounds that were fired to test live detonators, primers or fuses also did not function as intended.
Two thousand acres of the wildlife area also are contaminated with an estimated 77 tons of radioactive depleted uranium from weapons that were tested from 1983 to 1994. The Army has said it cannot remove the depleted uranium for safe disposal because of the danger posed by unexploded ordinance.
Sodrel needs to move this project to the top of his list of priorities. We´ve lived too long with this danger in our backyard.
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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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