Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, December 16, 2005
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State of Nevada
December 16, 2005
Yucca Mountain Update
Another restructuring of the Yucca Mountain Project?
Call it “Back to the Future,’ DOE style
By Bob Loux
Director
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects
It is no surprise that Nevada officials reacted with skepticism to the U.S. Department of Energy´s Oct. 25 announcement of a fundamental change in the design for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository system.
For those of us who have been associated with the DOE repository program for the two decades or more, DOE restructurings, reassessments, and reorganizations are nothing new. Ideas come and go, the organizational chart changes, the game of organizational “musical chairs’ starts and stops, but the fundamental problems and flaws with Yucca Mountain are never addressed. And for good reason. To do so would mean admitting that Yucca is a bad site for a geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste.
October´s announcement of the next best DOE idea is no exception. Paul Golan, the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management´s current acting director, revealed that DOE was moving ahead to hire a contractor to implement a plan to operate the Yucca Mountain repository as a “clean,’ or non-contaminated, facility. Golan proposes to do this by eliminating spent fuel handling facilities at the repository and using only “standardized’ canisters where radioactive waste would be loaded into the containers at the point of origin (i.e., at nuclear power plants), and then stored, transported and disposed of without having to reopen the packaging.
Problem is, this “new idea’ has been floated before – back in 1992 as the “Multiple Purpose Canister (MPC)" initiative – and it was rejected then as being too costly and too logistically difficult to implement. To be fair, the proposal made some sense 13 years ago, when most utilities were still storing spent fuel in water-filled pools where it could be moved, relatively easily, into sealed canisters and from there into MPCs for dry storage, transport and disposal.
Today, however, a significant percentage of nuclear utility companies are already storing spent fuel in dry storage installations using a variety of sealed storage systems, none of which are compatible with Golan´s “standardized’ canister idea.
What´s really going on here is a desperate attempt by DOE to cover up just how scientifically, legally, and morally bankrupt the Yucca Mountain program is. Things are so bad that DOE has had to resort to the fiction of a major restructuring of the repository system design this late in the game – at a time when the DOE is supposed to be in the last phase of preparing its license application to NRC, something that DOE has now been forced to place on indefinite hold.
It is instructive to note that all this is taking place in the context of an emerging major – some would say quantum – shift in Congress´ approach to federal nuclear waste policy. The 2006 Energy and Water Appropriation Act, for the first time, combined deep cuts in the Yucca project with new appropriations for building reprocessing capabilities. Rumors are persistent that a landmark agreement is in the works between two key legislators – Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and New Mexico Sen. Pete Dominici – that would fundamentally revamp national nuclear waste policy, focusing on reprocessing, waste reduction and interim storage while deemphasizing Yucca Mountain.
At the very least, the changes Mr. Golan is proposing will add many months and perhaps years to the timetable for submitting DOE´s Yucca Mountain license application and will likely require new environmental documentation both for the repository and for the proposed transportation system.
The bottom line: Yucca Mountain is still Yucca Mountain. You can try to dress it up with all sorts of diversionary restructurings, but the site remains a porous, fractured and entirely unsuitable repository location that cannot pass muster in the NRC licensing arena.
There is, nevertheless, a certain irony in watching the array of Yucca Mountain “fixes’ over the years come full circle. In honor of this new “new’ approach, perhaps it would be appropriate, for now, to rename Yucca, the “Golan Heights.’
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State of Nevada
December 16, 2005
Yucca Mountain Update
Outrage of the week
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency´s recently released draft radiation health protection standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository qualifies as much more than a mere outrage of the week. Try outrage of the millennia.
If adopted, the proposed regulations would permit future generations living in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain to be exposed to up to 70 times more radiation than is permitted today. What´s more, the new EPA health protection standard would abandon any requirement for limiting radiation in the groundwater after the first 10,000 years.
Ten thousand years, you say! Why should we be concerned about something that´s so very far out into the future? The answer is simple: What is really at stake here is the methodology, the benchmark, by which the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a long-term, geologic repository for some of the most deadly and long-lived materials ever created by man will be assessed and by which irrevocable decisions will be made today that will affect humans and the environment for what is, for all practical purposes, an eternity.
The fundamental issue at the heart of the debate over the Yucca Mountain radiation exposure limits is whether the mountain can, in fact, keep these deadly materials away from people and out of the environment for the time required to render them harmless – in this case hundreds of thousands of years. The answer to that question is, emphatically, “No.’ Yucca Mountain is so fractured and porous, and groundwater moves through it so rapidly, that once radioactive waste gets out of the man-made disposal containers, it will move very quickly into the aquifer below the mountain and, from there, into the accessible environment. No one disputes this fact.
DOE claims to have “solved’ this little problem for the short term by assuming that the containers the waste will be put in for burial will remain intact for at least 10,000 years. (Now, whether it is reasonable – or even sane – to expect something man-made to work for 10 millennia is a whole other issue, but that is the assumption DOE will try to sell if and when it applies for a license to construct the facility.)
Not coincidentally, EPA´s maximum radiation exposure allowance for this period would be set at 15 millirems per year, a reasonable and universally accepted level considered protective of human health and the environment. It also works quite well for DOE. Heck, under DOE´s waste container longevity assumption, it could meet a zero exposure standard for the period.
However, DOE has a major problem when you take away the man-made waste disposal packages. All of the performance models show that, almost immediately thereafter (i.e., in geologic time a few hundred years or less), radionuclides will begin to find their way into the groundwater and food chain. To “fix’ DOE´s problem, EPA has proposed a gerrymandered exposure limit that is between 20 and 70 times less stringent for the period after 10,000 years, depending on how the calculation is done. And because the amount of radiation in the groundwater is especially troublesome for DOE, the new EPA regulation would simply eliminate any limit on rad exposures via groundwater.
Why is this regulatory gamesmanship so important to us today? Because these arbitrary exposure thresholds are the only way we have of deciding whether a repository site can, in fact, function sufficiently to isolate radioactive waste. Once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, using EPA´s dose limits, makes the determination that Yucca is suitable, the exposure standards will have little practical utility. After waste is emplaced in the mountain, it is never going to be removed, and people living hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years from now will bear the consequences of that decision.
Yet instead of establishing a dose limit that will be truly protective for the life to of the facility – something that could be done simply by requiring DOE to demonstrate that Yucca Mountain can meet the 15-millirem standard regardless of when the maximum exposures are expected to occur, EPA buckled under pressure from DOE and the nuclear industry and concocted a regulation designed not to protect human health and the environment, but rather to assure that Yucca Mountain is not disqualified.
If that isn´t an outrage worthy of the millennia, what is?
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Las Vegas SUN
December 16, 2005
Columnist Jeff German: Reid, Ensign turn tables on Yucca Mountain
Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.
After taking a beating from the federal government for nearly a quarter-century, Nevada is on the offensive for the first time in its epic battle against Yucca Mountain.
The bill Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign introduced to provide an alternative to Yucca Mountain has energized the Nevada forces.
"They've beaten us down all these years, but they didn't knock us out," says former Gov. Bob Miller, who has been at the forefront of much of the fight. "And now we're bouncing back."
The bill would allow the government to take ownership of high-level waste at nuclear plants across the country and pay the utilities to store it above ground in dry casks at those sites.
That would ease the nuclear power industry's concerns about being held liable for the deadly waste currently being kept at its reactors.
But more importantly it would eliminate the need to transport the waste across the nation's highways to the flawed burial grounds at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
And since the dry casks already have been tested to be safe for 100 years, the bill would buy time to find another long-term solution.
"I think it's a brilliant move," says longtime Yucca Mountain critic, former Sen. Richard Bryan. "In effect it puts the nuclear ball back in the utilities' court."
Bob Loux, the state's top Yucca Mountain watchdog, says the Reid-Ensign bill reflects "reality" in the ongoing nuclear waste storage debate.
"This is what's going to be done in the end, anyway," he says. "This stuff is not going to be moved from any of these reactor sites."
Still, Reid and Ensign face an uphill battle on Capitol Hill to get this legislation passed. The majority of the Republican-controlled Congress still backs Yucca Mountain.
But the good news is that the Nevada senators out of the box have won the support of two key Republicans, Sens. Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah, who are co-sponsors of the bill.
And you can never underestimate Reid's growing abilities as the Democratic minority leader.
Reid already has a grass-roots organization in place to rally support for the measure among elected officials in states along the Yucca Mountain transportation routes. The waste is slated to pass through some pretty big metropolitan areas.
Recently, the environmental group Citizen Alert formed a committee, Nevadans United to Finish the Job, to spread the anti-Yucca Mountain word across the country.
Peggy Maze-Johnson, Citizen Alert's executive director in Las Vegas, says the committee hopes to raise $500,000 for its campaign. It took in $75,000 at a Las Vegas benefit earlier this month.
"We're going to be making people understand that this isn't just a Nevada problem" Maze-Johnson says. "We've known for a long time that putting this stuff on the road is a dangerous, dangerous proposition."
What has fired up Nevada forces is the great timing of the Reid-Ensign bill.
It comes while Yucca Mountain appears most vulnerable. Even those within the nuclear power industry are starting to question whether storing radioactive waste in Nevada is the right approach.
"This has been a very good year for us," Bryan says. "There's just been a steady stream of negative publicity over the Yucca Mountain program.
"All of a sudden the aura of inevitability has been shredded."
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Las Vegas SUN
December 16, 2005
Editorial: Tide turning against Yucca
Nevada and Utah congressmen seek to leave nuclear waste on-site where it's generated
The Nevada and Utah congressional delegations are sponsoring legislation that would eliminate the need for the Yucca Mountain project by instead requiring that nuclear waste be stored on-site at the power plants where it is generated. By leaving it there, where it can be stored safely for at least another hundred years, the federal government can rationally find an alternative to Yucca Mountain, a site fraught with intractable problems.
Now it might seem bold of the two states to introduce this legislation, since it was just three years ago that Congress approved President Bush's proposal to build a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But in the relatively short span of time since the Bush administration rammed its plan through Congress, much has happened to further jeopardize the proposal to permanently entomb 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada.
A little more than a year ago the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standard for Yucca Mountain was nowhere near as strict as it should be in protecting the public from dangerous releases of radiation. Then serious allegations surfaced earlier this year that the U.S. Geological Survey had falsified data involving how fast water can travel through the mountain and potentially corrode the canisters containing nuclear waste. And just a month ago, Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and one of Yucca Mountain's leading proponents, let loose with some of his harshest language ever about the project, saying "it was not a good solution either on straight science, or surely, on economic grounds."
It also is telling that officials from Utah, a state in which an Indian tribe is courting nuclear utilities to store nuclear waste there until Yucca Mountain's fate is decided, are joining Nevada's fight. When Congress approved Bush's Yucca Mountain plan in 2002, Utah's two senators supported the plan -- but now they oppose it.
The latest legislative salvo reminds us yet again of how important it is to not give an inch and maintain the fight against the federal government's irresponsible and dangerous efforts to bury nuclear waste in Nevada.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 16, 2005
Nuclear waste bills introduced
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada and Utah lawmakers sought to spark new debate over nuclear waste storage in their states by introducing bills Wednesday that would force the Energy Department to keep radioactive spent fuel stockpiled at power plants.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a main sponsor, said the measures would stoke discussions about alternatives to the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, which has been set back by legal and technical questions since it won endorsement from President Bush and Congress in 2002.
"We have to move past Yucca Mountain," said Reid, a leading critic of the nuclear dump plan. "We believe there is an opportunity to change the direction of this government as it relates to the storage of nuclear waste."
The bills submitted in the Senate and House drew immediate opposition from the Department of Energy and from coalitions of nuclear utilities and regulators in states that have nuclear power plants and want to get rid of the waste they generate.
More than 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste generated by 103 commercial nuclear plants are kept in pools and dry storage at reactor sites in 35 states.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a co-sponsor of the measure introduced Wednesday, said he doubted Yucca critics could win a vote outright in the Senate now, where most senators remain supportive of the repository.
Rather, he said, the bills' purpose is to sow doubts about Yucca Mountain and promote alternatives like on-site storage or waste reprocessing.
"We keep chipping away at this, and then people will think that is the reality," Ensign said.
Critics said they expect the bill will get an airing because of Reid's position as Senate minority leader. But, they said, the Nevadans are recycling arguments they advanced and lost three years ago.
"Reid's strategy for the last few years has been to leave the fuel on-site, which was an argument he was making during the 2002 debate," said Terry Freese, director of legislative programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization.
Freese said Reid has added "new spin" by requiring the waste to be placed in dry cask storage, but his bill raises questions about costs and how the waste would be monitored and regulated.
"We have consistently held (that) the federal government needs to move used fuel off-site and to take responsibility for its permanent disposal," Freese said.
The bill requires nuclear utilities to move spent fuel into above-ground steel and concrete reinforced casks within six years after it is removed from reactors and placed in cooling pools.
The Energy Department would take ownership title of the waste and assume responsibility for managing it.
Money for the effort would be drawn from a utility-funded nuclear waste account, and that's another provision of the bill that drew criticism from industry executives.
DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said the measure was merely "kicking the can down the road.
"This bill in no way resolves the issue of permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel," Stevens said. "We continue to use sound science in our mission to get Yucca Mountain licensed and eventually opened."
Reid began promoting the so-called "take title" bill more than a year ago, but held off submitting it formally until now.
Congress is expected to recess at the end of the week and reconvene in January.
"I think I have support for this now," Reid said, without elaborating.
As introduced, the bill was co-sponsored by Ensign and Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Robert Bennett, both R-Utah. Hatch and Bennett are opposing a short-term nuclear waste site the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to license on the Goshute Indian Reservation, west of Salt Lake City.
Senate sources said Reid is trying to persuade Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to sign on in support of his bill. That would provide a boost because Domenici is highly influential on nuclear power matters.
Reid and Domenici reportedly were talking during the fall about collaborating on nuclear waste legislation that would combine Reid's on-site storage approach with a waste reprocessing initiative favored by Domenici.
Congress passed Domenici-crafted legislation in November directing the Energy Department to step up efforts to identify a favored nuclear waste reprocessing technology and possible locations for a reprocessing factory.
Domenici could not be reached for comment; but spokeswoman Marnie Funk said he did not plan to comment on the legislation introduced Wednesday.
A similar bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter, both R-Nev., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, were co-sponsors.
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Pahrump Valley Times
December 16, 2005
Commissioners Meetings Tuesday, Wednesday
Senior center on agenda
By Phillip Gomez
PVT
The Nye County Board of Commissioners meets in Pahrump next week to decide the fate of the town's senior center, including whether to take it over, ending the non-profit's nearly seven year run independent of the county. The center's indebtedness and possible closure is the reason for the action.
The board convenes at 8:30 a.m. at the Bob Ruud Community Center Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday's meeting is given over to planning and zoning issues coming before the board.
Timed agenda items scheduled for Tuesday include:
• At 10:30 a.m., a public hearing to adopt water conservation standards for the Pahrump Valley. The hearing on the proposed ordinance is carried over from the board's Nov. 16 meeting.
• At 11 a.m., a public hearing to add an account in the county's general fund for the acquisition of technology for the county assessor's office, as required by Nevada law.
• At 1:30 p.m., a progress report on the nuisance abatement progress by property owners at 2420 W. McMurray Dr. in Pahrump. Previously the board granted a 60-day cleanup period before ordering the county to do the job and attaching a lien to the property for the cost.
• At 2 p.m., discussion and possible approval for entering into a contract with Psomas to develop a geographic information system (GIS) program, database and software system for the county.
Consent agenda items include the granting of a number of temporary licenses and kennel permits to animal care groups, including the Pahrump Humane Society, Friends of Animals, K-9 Kastle Bed & Bone and Animal Care Center of Pahrump.
Commissioners are to discuss and possibly decide on the level of its commitment to developing an ultra-broadband fiber optic ring project with U.S. MetroNets for Pahrump, authorizing the commission chairwoman to draft and sign letters in bringing the project to fruition.
The county's month-to-month contract with Ann Barron as director of the county's economic development initiatives is up for review. Barron is currently paid $7,000 per month for her services.
Another contract, with Wilbur Smith Associates, also comes before the commission to conduct an evaluation of the socio-economic and engineering impacts of construction of the Caliente Railroad between Caliente and the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository. The recommended funding is $75,000 for the three-month study.
In support of the county's oversight program of the Yucca Mountain project, an $18,000 contract with Walt Kuver for three months is up for discussion and possible approval.
Timed agenda items for Wednesday's meeting include a developer's dozen projects for warehouses and mixed-use commercial and residential developments. Most of these relate to conforming zone changes for development of several four-plex apartments in the Calvada neighborhood.
One zone change request to the Mixed-Use District calls for 242 condominiums to be built on 17 acres between Sloan Street and Simkins Road on Blagg Road.
Another zone change request to the General Commercial District, if approved, would allow for the construction of an advertising billboard at 4061 S. Frontage Road, south of Gamebird Road in the Calvada area.
Still another conforming zone change application for 80 acres requests a change to the Rural Residential Estates District, one-acre minimum. On property master-planned as low-density residential, between Warren and Corbin streets, south of Adkisson Street, the owner wants to develop 46 one-acre lots as the High Peaks Subdivision. The subdivision would have 12 lots designated as open space.
In a re-hearing of a conforming zone change of approximately one acre to the Mixed Use District, located on Mesquite Avenue near its intersection with Jill Avenue, the owner would be enabled to construct a variety of commercial, single-family and multi-family residential projects, if approved.
Finally, a public hearing is scheduled on a bill to remove the distance requirements for liquor sales in the General Commercial District and amending said requirement to 200 feet, as well as other matters pertaining to voting procedures on master plan amendments.
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Pahrump Valley Times
December 16, 2005
How do historians know what they know?
By Bob McCracken
Special to The PVT
Historians working on the Southern Nevada desert - or anywhere, for that matter - use a variety of information sources to construct their accounts of the past. First, a historian nearly always relies on books and articles written by other historians.
To paraphrase the great English mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton, speaking of his own research, "We all stand on the shoulders of giants." Yet, admitting a historian is indebted to those who preceded him only begs the question, "Where do the historians on whose shoulders we stand get their information?"
Old newspapers probably constitute the most frequently consulted information source when it comes to the study of Western America's frontier past. Only the opening of a saloon, a general store, and a livery stable usually preceded the appearance of a local newspaper in a newly born frontier town. Although newspapers were selective in what they printed and frequently presented a more upbeat picture of the town than was justified, it's difficult to write about the West's past without relying to some degree on old newspapers.
Richard E. Lingenfelter, for example, relied heavily on old Death Valley area newspapers when he wrote his magnificent book Death Valley and the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion (1986). His use of information from old newspapers was so thorough and skilled I have little doubt that his book on Death Valley area history will ever be equaled, let alone superceded.
As the old prospector said of the mine from which all the gold had been removed, "It's all stoped out."
Another information source historians rely on is known as "personal documents" - items such as diaries, letters, and journals. Personal documents provide first-hand accounts of the past and descriptions of even the most mundane occurrences can be gems of historical information. History found in personal documents usually has a flesh-and-blood character to it, the sense of real human beings behind the written page, something often lacking in newspaper reports.
Biographies and memoirs are a type of personal document upon which historians sometimes rely.
Such accounts are ordinarily prepared by or about high-profile people, the rich and the famous, politicians and movers and shakers. Occasionally, what I call an "everyday-type person" writes an autobiography or memoir. Notice I didn't write "ordinary person."
In my view, there is no such thing as an ordinary human being. In my own history research, I typically prefer the memoirs and biographies of everyday people. They tell more about how people really lived and what went on at the grass roots.
One such document is Jean Carver Duhme's memoir of her life in Smokey Valley beginning in 1943 and the founding of Carvers in 1948. Back in the early 1990s, Jean and I had planned to publish her memoir under the Nye County Press imprint; unfortunately, county politics interceded. Although, sadly, Jean has passed on, publication of her lovely memoir remains high on my to-do list.
Another data source historians utilize is local, county, state, and federal records and documents. Included here are property title transfer records, tax and court records, and government reports. Among the latter are publications by the US Geological Survey. Their reports on the geology and economic potential of mines in Tonopah, Goldfield, and Rhyolite, for instance, are priceless.
All the above-named sources rely on the printed word. Sometimes, however, there is no substitute for what can be learned from examining a physical object from the past. Included in this important type of data source are old buildings and structures, tools such as mining implements (ranging from candleholders to picks and shovels to machinery such as a hoist or ore crusher) and household items. Valuable information can also be gleaned from what might be called personal objects - for example, keepsakes that people treasured such as an old ring, a brooch, or an item of clothing.
My personal favorite source of history data - one to which I am probably predisposed as a result of my training as an anthropologist - is the oral history. An oral history is defined as an interview with an individual regarding that person's recollections of the past.
Interviews can be short and highly focused, where a person, usually an older individual, answers a few questions concerning the past. A formal oral history involves conducting a structured interview where an interviewee's recollections, and perhaps life, are covered more systematically.
A formal oral history is ordinarily recorded - usually as audio, but sometimes as video. Ideally, the audio should be transcribed word for word and the transcription properly archived at one or more libraries or museums. The Nevada State Museum in Carson City, the capital, has several such histories.
The strength of oral history data is its firsthand nature. Most of the time, you can't get closer to an event in the past than by talking to someone who was there. And an oral history never gets old; in fact, the older it gets, the better it gets. What if we had the transcript of a two-hour interview with Jim Butler or Margaret Yount? "Margaret, what was it like raising children on your ranch in the Pahrump Valley in the late 1870s?"
One special type of oral history involves the historian's own memories and life experiences, which inevitably figure into the way he or she reconstructs the past. Really, history is inseparable from the historian's own life story.
It's true; oral history data is quite selective. It is selective both in the questions asked and in the interviewee's recollections. But that is the beauty of history. History is not a digital, linear-like photocopy of past events. It is a living human creation full of interpretation and error, and all the joys and fears, all the strengths and foibles of the human mind.
I have conducted approximately 140 formal oral history interviews with people of Southern Nevada, about half of them in Nye County.
These interviews have all been transcribed and properly archived. Data from the Nye County oral histories formed the core for the dozen or so books we published on Nye County history through Nye County Press and the Central Nevada Historical Society. (Two books from the series, one on Manhattan and one on Round Mountain, remain unpublished due to the aforementioned political problems.)
The majority of the 140 oral histories and the writing and publication of the Nye County history books was funded with Yucca Mountain money through several Nevada counties. Senator Harry Reid once told me he believed our history project was the best use made by the counties of their Yucca Mountain funds.
It is my belief that nearly every human being has an oral history in them. In a better world, a formal oral history would be conducted with every willing older individual. The benefits to society of such a program would be enormous. E-mail me if you would like me to write a column about that. In a future column, I will discuss how an oral history should be done.
McCracken is the author of A History of Pahrump, Nevada and 11 other books about Nye County published by the Nye County Press. Send questions and comments to rdmassociates@yahoo.com.
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Salt Lake Tribune
December 16, 2005
Update: Utah wins victory in efforts to block nuclear dump
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON -- Utah's congressional delegation achieved significant, hard-fought victory today in its effort to block a nuclear waste storage site in the state, winning approval of a wilderness area aimed at blocking a rail line that would deliver the waste.
The Cedar Mountain wilderness language was approved by leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees after a weeks-long push by Utah members of Congress who were aided by environmental groups and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid.
The creation of the 100,000-acre wilderness area would prevent construction of a rail line to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, where a group of electric utilities known as Private Fuel Storage has won a license to store 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants until a permanent home is built in Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The wilderness measure was inserted into a defense bill that now must still gain approval of both houses of Congress. Backers of the wilderness also say it assures the Air Force will be able to continue use of the Utah Test and Training Range. There was concern that jets would not be able to fly over the waste site to the range, limiting its usefulness.
PFS has said the wilderness area would not block construction of the site, but would only force the consortium to rely on the riskier option of trucking the waste on the two-lane Skull Valley highway.
The wilderness language adopted as part of a broader Defense Department policy bill, after the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees wrapped up differences in the final version of the bill.
The language included in the defense bill is actually a somewhat watered-down compromise from the version Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, had passed in the House. It would create a wilderness area but, unlike the original version, would not impose other restrictions on the use of the federal land surrounding the reservation.
Also, it would leave in place a provision requiring the Air Force to report on how nuclear waste storage might impede the military's use of the Utah Test and Training Range, adjacent to the reservation, before the Bureau of Land Management can approve a rail line to the reservation.
Bishop's original language would have lifted the Air Force's obligation.
The inclusion of the Cedar Mountain language marks the culmination of a bid five years ago by Rep. Jim Hansen, who has since retired, to slip wilderness language into the bill.
The Hansen version was opposed by environmental groups, who said it was watered down and would not protect the land, and was blocked by Democrats.
Since then, the Utah members have tried several times to pass Cedar Mountain wilderness legislation as part of the PFS fight. This time, after months of negotiation, Bishop had the backing of environmental groups, who fought for the measure.
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Salt Lake Tribune
December 16, 2005
Letter: Recycle nuclear waste
What!? Utah can't tax nuclear waste? All we need is new legislation. All governments impose specialized taxes (tobacco, phones, gas, trucking, etc.). All Utah needs to do is provide the land, or get it from the federal government, and then tax it. We should not store waste on the Skull Valley land because it is too close to military training ranges. Utah has many remote locations to store it and generate rich tax revenues.
With at least 95 percent of the “waste’ recyclable, Utah can bring in a multibillion-dollar recycling industry and assure our long-term economic viability. Then we can ship it out to generate clean energy. For the non-recyclable material, we can encapsulate it, dump it in the ocean abyss like the French do, and be rid of all of it. Nuclear activities in Idaho, Nevada and Washington state never hurt their economies.
Let's throw away the hysteria and get our talented politicians to embrace the cleanest and safest energy source ever discovered. Utah will not ultimately avoid receiving recyclable nuclear material. Too much of it is being generated. We can turn perceived adversity into great opportunity.
Randy Petersen
Bountiful
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Deseret News
December 16, 2005
On-site nuke storage only logical
Deseret Morning News editorial
Kudos go to Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations who have filed legislation calling for the storage of nuclear waste at nuclear power plants. The bills should send a strong message to the nuclear power industry that neither Yucca Mountain nor Tooele County's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation should be considered solutions to the nation's nuclear waste problem.
Moreover, federal legislation would trump differing state laws, some of which prohibit nuclear waste storage in their respective states.
Storing the waste where it is generated makes the most sense. As Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News, nuclear power plants are "going to have waste anyway." What is the point of fouling two other sites, far from where the waste was generated? What's the sense of transporting spent nuclear waste across the country, which would be a national security issue in the post-Sept. 11 world?
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, raises another critical issue: reprocessing of nuclear waste. So long as there is no national plan for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, Cannon predicts the debate over storage will continue and the western United States will continue to be at risk as "temporary" or permanent waste repositories.
Cannon is correct. There must be a resolution to the reprocessing issue. Likewise, the Department of Energy needs to take possession of nuclear waste on-site at nuclear reactors, which would relieve a nagging liability issues.
To hear Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tell it, Yucca Mountain will never open. It is, indeed, mired in questions over the science of the project and quality control. The matter remains under investigation.
The proposed storage facility on tribal lands in Tooele County, which is backed by Private Fuel Storage LLC, has suffered some setbacks recently. Three utilities in the PFS consortium have announced they are pulling out of above-ground storage facility planned for Utah's western desert. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says the announcements mean 57 percent of PFS' investments are now on hold. PFS officials say the project was always going to be done in phases, and many companies with storage needs could sign on in the future.
Either way, it's fair to say that the support for the project is not as robust as it once was, and Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations are resolved to keep the waste where it is.
The fight is far from over, but recent events suggest an encouraging shift in momentum.
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San Luis Obispo Tribune
December 16, 2005
Federal regulators are optimistic about Yucca Mountain dumpNRC officials still say that the dump will open within 20 years despite delays and opposition from Nevada lawmakersDavid SneedThe TribuneFederal nuclear regulators remain optimistic that a national nuclear waste dump will open at Yucca Mountain within the next 20 years despite numerous delays and staunch opposition from Nevada lawmakers.
Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told more than 100 people at a town hall-style meeting in San Luis Obispo this week that the federal government is continuing its efforts to open an underground radioactive waste repository in the desert near Las Vegas.
The possibility that an aboveground storage facility being built at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant could become permanent was a central topic of concern at the meeting. NRC officials fielded multiple questions about it.
They repeated the assertion that the storage facility will be temporary. They also criticized legislation introduced in Congress on Wednesday that would make temporary waste facilities like the one at Diablo Canyon permanent.
"That's not a tenable solution," said Blair Spitzberg, who heads the NRC's regional spent fuel office in Arlington, Texas.
Diablo Canyon's storage facility is licensed to operate for 20 years. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. can apply for a 20-year extension of the license, if needed.
PG&E has started construction of the facility, which will eventually contain 138 concrete-and-steel casks, with each cask holding 32 depleted but still highly radioactive reactor fuel assemblies.
"My biggest concern is that the temporary storage facility remains temporary," said Morro Bay businessman and former Mayor Rodger Anderson. "How long is the stainless steel really going to work?"
The Yucca Mountain dump was originally to begin accepting nuclear waste in 1998, but the project has been delayed repeatedly because of opposition by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada's senior Democrat, and other politicians, as well as because of questions about whether the facility can safely store the waste for the next 10,000 years.
California energy officials now estimate that the facility will not open for an additional 10 to 15 years, if ever.
NRC officials said Wednesday they were frustrated by the delays, but the Department of Energy remains committed to opening the Yucca Mountain facility. Regulators and nuclear industry officials say the science behind the Yucca Mountain project is sound.
Uncertainty over the safety of Diablo Canyon's spent fuel prompted some of the speakers to urge the NRC to shut the nuclear plant down and replace it with renewable energy sources. Earthquakes and terrorist attacks were cited as the main concerns.
Calls to close the plant are a standard part of every NRC meeting in San Luis Obispo. Wednesday's meeting featured anti-nuclear Christmas carolers and protesters wearing headgear fashioned to resemble the plant's emergency warning sirens.
Diablo Canyon managers plan to begin loading the first dry casks in November 2007. Eight casks will be loaded initially, with others loaded in phases as needed to create room in the spent-fuel pools, which are nearing capacity.
NRC officials described dry cask storage of spent fuel as a "mature technology" that dates to 1986 when the first facility was licensed in Virginia. Since then, 37 facilities have been established.
David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail story ideas and comments to him at dsneed@thetribunenews.com.
Participate in a poll about just how concerned you are that Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant could become a permanent nuclear waste dump at http://forums.sanluisobispo.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=kr-SLOgeneral&msg=990.1&ctx=1
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La Crosse Tribune
December 16, 2005
Sen. Hatch challenges Utah nuclear waste site
By Reid Magney
La Crosse Tribune and The Associated Press
A temporary nuclear waste storage site in Utah cleared one legal hurdle last week, but still faces challenges.
Private Fuel Storage, a La Crosse-based consortium of nuclear-plant owning utilities, won a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld lower courts´ rulings that Utah can´t pass laws governing nuclear waste storage because it´s a federal issue.
In the wake of that ruling Dec. 5, lawmakers who oppose PFS´s plans for a waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation are speaking out.
“My intent here is to get rid of the Skull Valley project,’ U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters last week. “I´m going to do that any way I can.’
Dairyland Power Cooperative and Xcel Energy are part owners of PFS. Skull Valley was designed as a temporary, private alternative to the federal government´s troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, which was originally supposed to open in 1998 but has been delayed until at least 2017.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September authorized a license for the facility — which would be used to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel — but the process is not complete.
The federal Bureau of Land Management recently announced it will take public comments for 90 days on a lease for a railroad right-of-way that will carry spent nuclear fuel to the site about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Hatch recently argued to the Interior Department that the government should ask for new public input because it had not considered the terrorist target posed by such an above-ground storage facility.
Hatch also claimed new information showed PFS was crumbling. The new round of comments and information about PFS´s financial stability could lead the BLM to block the rights of way, according to Hatch´s office.
But the consortium of utilities may not be as close to unraveling as Hatch suggests.
Last week, two of the eight utilities that make up PFS — Southern Nuclear Operating Co. and Xcel Energy — said they had dropped their support for Skull Valley construction.
Hatch said that six companies, including Southern, had suspended their funding in 2002. With more dropping out, just one active member was left, he said. One company could not hope to finance the project alone, he said.
“The viability of the PFS proposal is now seriously threatened,’ Hatch wrote to Interior Secretary Gale Norton. He asked her to consider the information when deciding PFS´s request for rights of way.
PFS Chairman John Parkyn said in an interview Tuesday that recent statements by Xcel Energy another utility that they won´t put more funding into the project “aren´t inconsistent’ with their previous positions.
Parkyn said PFS is still viable, and that the original owners of PFS won´t necessarily be its customers. Utilities that use the Skull Valley will pay for its construction, operation and clean-up, he said.
Parkyn said there are nine closed nuclear plant sites that need a storage option like Skull Valley in order to fully decommission. One of those sites is Dairyland´s Genoa plant, which going through the decomissioning process.
Spent fuel could be stored at Genoa in dry casks, but Dairyland Vice President of Generation Chuck Sans-Crainte said, “If PFS is built, Dairyland will be inclined to use it. Much depends on the timing. If there is a delay that may require we store it locally.’
In interviews with The Associated Press, two of the six companies said they were still funding PFS and had no plans to drop out.
“All the operators of power plants need a place to store their fuel for the long term, and this facility may be one of the answers,’ said Todd Schneider, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., one of the PFS partners.
Diane Park, a spokeswoman for Entergy Nuclear, said that her company is an active PFS partner and has not decided what its future relationship with PFS will be.
Southern California Edison dropped its funding for PFS in 1999 but is still a participant, said spokesman Ray Golden.
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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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