Yucca Mountain News Clips - Saturday, December 31, 2005

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Saturday, December 31, 2005
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KRNV
December 31, 2005

BLM sets aside corridor for study of Yucca Mountain rail route

The federal Bureau of Land Management has designated a swath of land across Nevada so the Energy Department can study a route for a railroad to haul radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain.

The move was made official Wednesday.

The BLM says it won't limit most current uses of the mile-wide, 319-mile long corridor from Caliente to the Yucca site.

Current valid mining claims, grazing rights, water rights and public access to the land shouldn't be affected. But it gives the Energy Department room for studies and surveys -- while preventing new mining claims and deterring the BLM from selling the property.

Right now, there's no rail line to the Yucca Mountain site -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

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Salt Lake Tribune
December 31, 2005

2005 wrap-up: Debates raged over taxes, nuclear waste, schools, highway

Top Controversies

The 2005 Legislature predictably kicked off a year of public-policy discussion in Utah that has been marked by ongoing battles over nuclear waste storage and tax reform and the long-awaited settlement of a five-year fight over the construction of a portion of the Legacy Highway.

Some of the year's controversies:

Driver license bill: The Legislature voted to replace regular driver licenses for undocumented immigrants with driving privilege cards. We believe the bill was a reasonable measure to limit illegal aliens to the necessary ability to drive without implying the right to vote or other privileges that go with citizenship.

It also put Utah in line with a federal law prohibiting states from issuing driver licenses to undocumented residents. The goal is to prevent illegals from using state driver licenses as identification to travel on airplanes or obtain other access granted only to citizens. Latino advocacy groups opposed the bill, saying it would dangerously identify undocumented residents and relegate them to lower-class status.

Behind this controversy remains this country's failed immigration policy, which will undoubtedly continue to cause problems throughout the country.

Tax reform: In May the state's Tax Reform Task Force, authorized by the Legislature, began hashing out proposals to overhaul Utah's outdated and sometimes unfair tax code, acting on ideas first addressed by a similar committee appointed by former Gov. Olene Walker in 2004.

Over eight months, the group has discussed such things as eliminating the corporate income tax, making individual income tax rates "flatter" but retaining deductions for home mortgages and charitable contributions, overhauling the way sales taxes are distributed, and abolishing the sales tax on food.

At the end of the year, the task force recommendations to the 2006 Legislature are vague and without much meat. It will be up to lawmakers to polish them into substantive changes. We can only hope that legislators have the time during their brief session to salvage real reform.

Nuclear waste: A battle over a federal plan to transport nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation moved over several political switchbacks during 2005. Despite the efforts of Utah politicians to keep the waste out, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a permit for the Goshutes and their business partners, Private Fuel Storage, to store it.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management still must sign off on the plan, and there are serious objections including the fact that, while Skull Valley is envisioned as a temporary lay-over for 44,000 tons of spent reactor fuel, delays to a permanent repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain could mean the stuff stays in Utah indefinitely. Utah's Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, seeing the way the wind is blowing, has sided with Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid, the nation's highest ranking Democrat, on legislation to keep the waste on-site where it is produced. Sen. Orrin Hatch, to our dismay, has remained loyal to President

Bush and his support for the doomed Yucca Mountain repository.

Legacy Highway: We supported the deal reached by environmental groups and state highway officials that ended a five-year court battle and will allow the Legacy Parkway, the first stretch of the eventual Legacy Highway, to be built. Thankfully, the Legislature - with some members claiming duress - went along. Opponents of the settlement said the state caved to legal blackmail, but we disagreed. The highway still will be a four-lane, limited-access road. It still will follow the state's preferred route, but will include a larger wildlife preserve and cycling paths. Light- and heavy-rail transit and more commuter buses will be available sooner than they would have been under the original plan. Those are the benefits of the legal wrangling. A price inflated by about $250 million is the cost to taxpayers for overconfident politicians starting construction before litigation had been settled.

Granite School District closures: The Granite Board of Education voted to close two elementary schools and redirect the mission of Granite High School after weeks of heated debate, pitting east-side against west-side parents. The district had no choice, given budget constraints. We believe closing schools on the east side of the huge district is necessary and sensible, since a population shift to the west has created below-capacity enrollments on the east and burgeoning west-side schools.

We questioned, however, the reluctance of the board to add to its meager debt load to help avoid a budget shortfall and the perennial failure of the Legislature to fully fund education for all of Utah's growing school population.

Real Salt Lake: Utah's new pro soccer team, Real Salt Lake, decided to build a $75 million soccer stadium in Sandy, after a yearlong competition among Murray, Salt Lake City and Sandy for the project. The tactics that made Sandy the winner, we believe, were a tad underhanded.

It started with an agreement among the Legislature, Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County for an expanded downtown Salt Palace Convention Center and a parking garage for the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy. Salt Lake City put in $8 million as its share. Then out of the blue came House Speaker Greg Curtis with the idea that some of the $18 million set aside for the parking garage could instead go to the soccer project. Now the question is how much, if any, of the cost of the stadium should come from the public till.

Our answer: none.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
December 30, 2005

BLM paves way for proposed Yucca rail

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Land Management has agreed to place restrictions on public land in a 300-mile corridor that is being studied for a railroad line to carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.

The BLM announced Wednesday that it has reserved the mile-wide corridor from Caliente to the Yucca site, a proposed underground repository where the Department of Energy wants to store radioactive spent fuel.

The BLM's land withdrawal cements the Energy Department's access to the property as it studies rail alignments to the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

A two-year temporary land withdrawal was set to expire Thursday, said Dennis Samuelson, a BLM realty specialist in Reno. The new order extends the land withdrawal for 10 years on 308,600 acres.

The land withdrawal will prevent mineral prospectors from filing mining claims along the route. It also will deter BLM from selling any of the land or allowing other federal agencies to make use of it, Samuelson said.

Current valid mining claims, grazing rights, water rights and public access to the land will not be affected, BLM officials said.

The Department of Energy said in a draft study in August that its work would be minimally invasive, consisting of photographing topography and conducting land surveys.

But Nevada state officials and other critics of the Yucca program contend that the Energy Department underestimated the impact of the land withdrawal on ranchers and other land users. They argue that on-the-ground activities will be more disruptive than the Energy Department has advertised, with implications for property values, the local economy, and archaeological and cultural features.

"We are still contending the selection of the corridor itself was illegal and that BLM dropped the ball in not requiring a more thorough environmental impact statement," said Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Attorneys for the state have sued the government over the Energy Department's transportation planning, and a three-judge panel heard oral arguments in the case in October. A ruling is expected early next year.

The land withdrawal may provide fodder for further legal action by the state or possibly from ranchers along the corridor, said Bob Halstead, a Nevada-hired transportation consultant.

"We are going to take a close look at this. If we can find anything that seems unacceptable, we are not going to be shy about going after them," Halstead said.

The land withdrawal "is our first really final action in terms of control of the specific corridor," he said.

Samuelson said the Energy Department completed BLM requirements for a land withdrawal three or four weeks ago, including finalizing an environmental assessment.

The land order was signed Dec. 21 in Washington by Mark Limbaugh, the Interior Department's assistant secretary for water and science, Samuelson said. It was published Wednesday in the Federal Register.

The Energy Department is pursuing a strategy of shipping nuclear waste from most commercial power reactors by rail to a rail yard outside Caliente, and then west around the Nevada Test Site boundary and south to Yucca Mountain on newly built rail.

Caliente is on the existing Union Pacific line between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.

Department of Energy officials recently doubled the cost estimates for a Nevada railroad, to $2 billion.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 29, 2005

BLM sets aside corridor for study of Yucca Mountain rail route

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A swath of land across Nevada has been set aside for the Energy Department to study as a route for building a railroad to haul highly radioactive waste to a national nuclear waste dump, Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday.

The restrictions imposed this week won't limit most current uses of the mile-wide, 319-mile long corridor between Caliente near the Utah line and the planned nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, said Dennis Samuelson, a BLM realty specialist in Reno.

"You're probably not going to see anything on the ground, no stakes or anything," Samuelson said Thursday. "People can recreate and hunt in the area."

The designation grants the Energy Department access to the 308,600 acres of property to study rail alignments to the Yucca Mountain site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. There is no rail line to the site that Congress and President Bush picked in 2002 to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive commercial, industrial and military waste now stored in 39 states.

Problems at the Yucca Mountain dump have delayed the projected opening date by years, and it's now not expected until after 2012.

Project officials recently increased cost estimates for building the railroad from $880 million to $2 billion.

A two-year temporary land withdrawal had been set to expire Thursday along the route dubbed the Caliente Corridor. The new order extends it for 10 years and can be renewed.

The land withdrawal prevents new mining claims and deters the BLM from selling the property. Current valid mining claims, grazing rights, water rights and public access to the land should not be affected, Samuelson said.

The Energy Department said in August that its studies would consist mostly of photographing topography and conducting land surveys.

Nevada state officials and other repository critics contend that Energy Department activities will hurt property values, the local economy, and archaeological and cultural features.

"We are still contending the selection of the corridor itself was illegal and that BLM dropped the ball in not requiring a more thorough environmental impact statement," said Joe Strolin, an administrator with the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Attorneys for the state have sued the government over the Energy Department's rail plan. A three-judge federal court panel heard oral arguments in the case in October, and a ruling is expected early next year.

The land order was signed Dec. 21 in Washington by Mark Limbaugh, Interior Department assistant secretary for water and science. It became effective when it was published Wednesday in the Federal Register.

---On the Net:

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

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

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KESQ
December 30, 2005

BLM sets aside corridor for study of Yucca Mountain rail route

LAS VEGAS The federal Bureau of Land Management has designated a swath of land across Nevada so the Energy Department can study a route for a railroad to haul radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain.

The move was made official yesterday (Wednesday).

The B-L-M says it won't limit most current uses of the mile-wide, 319-mile long corridor from Caliente to the Yucca site.

Current valid mining claims, grazing rights, water rights and public access to the land shouldn't be affected.

But it gives the Energy Department room for studies and surveys -- while preventing new mining claims and deterring the B-L-M from selling the property.

Right now, there's no rail line to the Yucca Mountain site -- 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

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Longview Daily News
December 30, 2005

Tower's coming down -- PGE plans spectacular implosion for regional landmark in May

By Courtney Sherwood

One of the region's most recognizable landmarks will be reduced to a pile of rubble in May, when Portland General Electric implodes the Trojan Nuclear Plant's 499-foot-tall cooling tower.

PGE originally planned to demolish the concrete tower in 2018. But company spokesman Mark Fryburg said Thursday the utility decided to move the date up after further cost analysis.

The cooling tower will collapse in a giant puff of dust as orchestrated by Controlled Demolition Inc. -- the same company that imploded Seattle's Kingdome in 2000. Imploding involves a series of strategically timed and placed explosions designed to collapse a structure inward.

Long after it vanishes from the Rainier skyline, the cooling tower will live on in pop culture. Simpson's creator Matt Groening has credited Trojan as the inspiration for the Springfield nuclear plant on his long-running Fox TV cartoon show.

It's also inspired imaginations closer to home.

"I think the cooling tower should be turned into the Rainier Soda Fountain and Fishing Hole," Diedre Young suggested in a 2004 Daily News story seeking readers' suggestions for uses for the tower. "That way people could get a 'fizzy' drink while they are going 'fission!' "

"Trojan would make an excellent prison --- elevators, cages, peep holes in the very thick walls for windows, if needed," said Richard L. Shern of Longview. "Execution of prisoners would be very simple --- pushed off the top into a Dumpster."

Then there's this idea from Roger Thomas of Goble: "Tap it and fill it with beer for the ultimate Oktoberfest."

Needless to say, PGE wasn't interested.

The cooling tower never contained any radioactive materials. While the plant was operating, from 1976 to its shutdown in 1993, nuclear fission reactions took place in a dome-topped containment building next to the cooling tower. Heat from the fission turned water into steam, and this steam turned turbines to generate power.

The nonradioactive steam was then channeled into the hollow cooling tower, where it would circulate until it cooled back into water.

The containment building was cleared of all nuclear materials by May 2005, when Trojan was officially certified as decommissioned, and it should be demolished by late 2008, Fryburg said.

Now all the remaining radioactive materials from the power plant are stored in 26-inch-thick concrete and steel casks in a safe location on the 643-acre Trojan campus, Fryburg said. It's unclear when they'll be removed.

The waste is currently scheduled to be shipped to a nuclear storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in 2024, Fryburg said. But a political battle in full swing surrounds nuclear storage issues at Yucca Mountain, and it's unclear when -- or whether -- the federal government ever will authorize Trojan materials to be shipped to the site.

PGE's long-term goal is to return Trojan to unrestricted use, according to the utility's pamphlet about decommissioning. Future uses "could include a new gas-fired power plant or other commercial development," or it could become a new state park, according to the pamphlet.

Through last May, the utility had spent $429 million to decommission the power plant, according to an article in the South County Spotlight, of Scappoose, Ore., which first reported PGE's cooling tower demolition plans on Wednesday.

The plant cost $450 million to build in the early 1970s --- $1.5 billion in today's dollars.

Fryburg confirmed the decommissioning price tag, but he could not provide information about the remaining costs of tearing down the Trojan Nuclear Plant.

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Wisconsin Radio Network
December 30, 2005

UW gets nuclear energy study grant

by Bob Hague

Recycling spent fuel could be key to nuclear energy's future.

A problem: all the space at the nation's yet to open Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is already committed for existing radioactive waste, from the nation's reactors. Todd Allen is a researcher, at UW Madison. "We'd like to recycle the spent fuel," said Allen. "In order to do that, we need to use a different type of reactor than we use right now, called a fast reactor. Essentially, our research is helping to develop fuel forms for that type of reactor."

Two University of Wisconsin-Madison projects to study advanced materials and fuels for current and future nuclear reactors received roughly one million dollars this month, under the Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research Initiative. "It's exciting for us to be involved, in these advanced research projects," said Allen. "We hope to come up with some solutions that help make nuclear energy in the future a little more easy to deal with."

This is the second year for the research initiative, and both years UW Madison has received multiple awards.The university was among five universities to receive funding for multiple projects this year

AUDIO (Bob Hague reports :63 MP3)
http://www.wrn.com/mp3/nuke123005.mp3

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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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