Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, March 16, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 16, 2006

Agency takes look at second waste site

DOE official: Spent nuclear fuel piling up

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Although Yucca Mountain is nowhere close to being completed, the Energy Department is starting to consider developing a second nuclear waste repository, DOE officials told Congress on Wednesday.

No matter what the status of the Nevada project, the energy secretary is required to report to Congress between 2007 and 2010 on the need for further disposal of nuclear spent fuel.

All of the legally allowed space within Yucca Mountain is expected to be reserved almost as soon as it is built.

More than 55,000 tons of nuclear waste is being temporarily stored at commercial reactor sites, plus another 11,000 tons of Defense Department material, said Paul Golan, the acting chief of the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

The nuclear industry generates an additional 2,000 metric tons each year, which would increase if more nuclear power plants were licensed, industry officials said.

Meanwhile, Yucca Mountain has been capped by Congress at 77,000 tons.

The possible need for a second disposal site becomes clear "if you just look at the numbers in terms of what has been generated and what is the statutory cap," Golan said.

The study would cover issues that might alleviate the need for a second repository, such as the possibility of raising the legal capacity of Yucca Mountain or assessing whether spent fuel reprocessing might reduce waste volumes and allow more to fit inside the Nevada mountain, DOE officials said.

For a second repository, Golan told members of a House energy and water subcommittee that the agency would reconsider sites that were passed over when Nevada was singled out in the 1980s.

"We would start with the candidate sites that we looked at the first time and provide a map of the areas around the country that have the geological strata that would make those appropriate for second repositories," Golan said.

In 1983, DOE picked eight candidates besides the volcanic rock of Yucca Mountain as potential sites, including salt domes in Louisiana and Mississippi; bedded salt formations in Texas and Utah, and basalt in Washington state.

DOE also examined granite formations in 17 states in the East and Midwest.

"There are more than two dozen states where we would look to site a second repository," Clay Sell, Energy Department deputy secretary, said in a separate appearance on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Congress might become motivated to complete Yucca Mountain after DOE starts floating the idea of opening new nuclear repositories, said Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.

"It might provide more support for Yucca Mountain if we identify other sites around the country; that's just a wild guess on my part," he said.

Yucca Mountain is eight years behind schedule and faces technical and legal challenges and opposition from environmentalists and Nevada leaders.

Would Congress have the appetite to undertake a second repository?

"If we have to," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Platts
March 15, 2006

Two dozen states might be repository candidate, again

Washington (Platts)--15Mar2006

More than two dozen states could be back on the hook for a repository as DOE looks at the need for a second disposal facility. Paul Golan, acting director of the department's nuclear waste program, told a House Appropriations subcommittee today that eastern and western candidate sites that DOE looked at in the 1980s would be considered again. The department is to report to Congress sometime between January 2007 and 2010 on the need for a second repository. Following the hearing, Golan sidestepped a media question on why DOE was considering sites when it hasn't decided yet whether a second facility would be needed. However, at least one observer of the DOE program said that action could generate more congressional support for the proposed facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada as lawmakers try to keep a repository out of their states.

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Casper Star Tribune
March 16, 2006

Yucca delays frustrate lawmakers

By Erica Werner
Associated Press writer

WASHINGTON -- A long-delayed nuclear waste dump in Nevada that has cost $9 billion so far is years away from opening, the project's director told frustrated lawmakers Wednesday, and will be at capacity from radioactive waste now accumulating.

The Energy Department also plans to determine the need for a second site for an underground dump, said Paul Golan, acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Department officials had most recently set 2012 as the projected opening for the first nuclear waste dump, at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but have backed off that goal. Golan would only say Wednesday, "We should be able to open it next decade." The original target was 1998.

"It's obvious the 2012 date is now out the window," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations' energy subcommittee.

Some 55,000 tons of waste are collecting at commercial reactor sites in 39 states and high-level waste is being stored at defense sites, too. Yucca Mountain is supposed to hold 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

"Frankly I don't want to build eight Yucca Mountains," said Hobson, who has pressed the department to establish interim, above-ground storage sites for nuclear waste.

Golan said his understanding is the department does not have the power to do that without congressional approval. The House agreed to the idea last year, but the Senate rejected it.

Lawmakers are awaiting a proposal from the administration to facilitate the construction of Yucca Mountain. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the proposal would include changing the way Yucca is funded and withdrawing public land around the property to create a permanent site for the dump.

In combination with the administration's new plan to recycle nuclear waste, these steps could postpone indefinitely the need to find a second dump site, Sell said in written testimony.

The department still must apply for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open Yucca Mountain. Golan said the department will not be ready for that step until after the budget year that ends Sept. 30, 2007, but he said a better schedule should be developed this summer.

Among Yucca Mountain's problems are a federal court's rejection of the government's original radiation safety standards for the dump; a controversy over fabricated quality assurance data; and political opposition from home-state lawmakers, including Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's top Democrat.

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Casper Star Tribune
March 16, 2006

Group asks feds to join waste transport

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The utility consortium that wants to store nuclear waste on a Utah Indian reservation has asked Congress to consider allowing the Energy Department to become one of its clients and move nuclear waste to Utah, or at least reimburse utilities that choose to use the temporary storage site.

The idea by Private Fuel Service was an unpleasant surprise to members of Utah's congressional delegation, who doubt it will go anywhere.

"On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation's nuclear waste policy," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News.

Bennett said PFS has repeatedly stressed its independence from the government.

"Now it wants the government to take over. The about-face of this letter demonstrates PFS sees that its options continue to dwindle," he said. "They're grasping for options, but this one won't work, either."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it would be a huge mistake for Congress to introduce any bills that would help PFS and so far no one has indicated they would do so.

"I'm not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project," Hatch said.

Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn told Congress in a letter that it would cost less to move waste to Utah than for the government to pay court settlements to utilities that still have waste.

"It would reduce tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' liability while permitting fuel movement within a three-year period to the only available central interim location currently vetted through the licensing program to ensure safety and security for this large quantity of material," Parkyn wrote.

The federal government was supposed to open a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in 1998. But that project has faced a series of obstacles.

Utilities have sued the government, and in some cases have received millions of dollars, for breaking its promise to take the waste by the 1998 deadline.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued PFS a license to open the temporary nuclear storage site on the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation last month.

Congress has helped Utah block movement of waste to the site by creating a wilderness area that project opponents believe will prevent transporting waste to the site by rail.

The PFS letter, dated Dec. 13, went to Congress a week after the Supreme Court declined to consider Utah's case against the site and is just making its way to congressional offices now, the News said.

Congress has established a record that waste would not go to PFS with the government's help, according to Scott Parker, chief of staff for Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

"The letter appears to have been sent over right about the time Rob and the delegation were successful in creating wilderness to block the rail spur needed to haul in the waste," Parker said. "So this may have just been PFS trying to react in some way to a legislative loss for them and a big victory for Utah. There doesn't appear to be anything new or ground-breaking in the memo."

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the bill supported by Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations to leave waste on site at nuclear power plants until the government can come up with a better disposal policy is a better alternative.

Joe Hunter, chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said getting the department to own the waste before moving it to Nevada is an option worth considering, but PFS's latest proposal is "a nonstarter."

"Who owns the waste is irrelevant if the idea is still to store it above ground on a reservation in Utah," Hunter said. "This would appear to be a 'proposal' designed to salvage an ill-advised plan that is rapidly losing ground."

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KRNV
March 16, 2006

Project head details delays, costs for nuclear waste dump

Nine billion dollars.

That's how much the federal government has spent so far on the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

Nevertheless, the project's director told frustrated lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the storage facility 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is years away from opening and will be at capacity from radioactive waste already accumulating.

The Energy Department also plans to determine the need for a second site for an underground dump.

Department officials had most recently set 2012 as the projected opening for the first nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, but have backed off that goal.

Paul Golan is the acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. All he would say today was that it should be open sometime in the next decade. The original target was 1998.

The chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy is among those frustrated by the delay.

The Ohio Republican David Hobson said, quoting now, "I don't want to build eight Yucca Mountains."

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KVBC
March 16, 2006

$9 billion already spent on Yucca Mountain

The Federal government has spent a reported $9 billion so far on the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Despite that, the project's director told frustrated lawmakes on Capitol Hill that the storage facility is years away from opening.

The director also says it will be at capacity from radioactive waste already accumulating. Department officials had most recently set 2012 as the projected opening for the first nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, but they have backed off that goal.

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NY NewStandard
March 16, 2006

Western Shoshone Struggle Earns World Recognition

by Michelle Chen

Western Shoshone Struggle Earns World Recognitionby Michelle Chen Though their plight has earned the sympathies of human rights groups and the UN, an embattled Indian nation sees an uphill fight ahead to gain the respect traditional leaders demand from Washington.Mar. 16 – A Native American group has renewed its push for equal treatment in the wake of a supportive ruling from the world's highest human rights body. The decision, issued by a committee of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, sternly rebuked the US government for civil and human rights violations against the Western Shoshone Nation.

The Western Shoshone, whose territory stretches across Nevada, Utah, Idaho and California, brought a complaint before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), charging that the United States is undertaking a systematic thievery of ancestral lands in violation of indigenous people's rights. The petitioners included the native-rights groups Western Shoshone Defense Project and Indian Law Resource Center, along with the humanitarian organization Oxfam America.

In its ruling, CERD urged the US government to halt any plans to appropriate Western Shoshone territory for private development or environmentally destructive government projects. The 18-member panel also criticized government fees and restrictions levied on Western Shoshone people for using their own land, and urged the government to negotiate formally with tribal leaders on unresolved land-ownership issues.

Though the decision builds on earlier CERD comments issued in 2001, as well as a previous ruling by the hemispheric human-rights panel Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it is the first full decision by the body specifically targeting US policy toward American Indians.

Julie Fishel, an attorney with the Western Shoshone Defense Project, part of the delegation that presented the case to CERD at the UN in Geneva, called the ruling "the beginning of a watershed of Indian people standing up and saying, 'No more.'" However, she added that the petitioners had gone to Geneva only after finding that Washington was ignoring their struggle. "Native people shouldn't have to travel across the ocean to have their issues addressed," she remarked.

The CERD petitioners argued that the government's actions had violated international covenants on civil rights and non-discrimination by denying them equal protection before the law, their right to self-determination, and their cultural rights as native peoples.

Though the abuses cited in the Western Shoshone case have historical underpinnings, the controversy over land rights reached a boiling point with the enactment of the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act in 2004. Heavily promoted by Nevada Senators Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R), the Act would forcibly distribute "payment" for the loss of ancestral claims to land and natural resources.

The Act provides for the distribution of over $140 million in federal funds to people of Western Shoshone descent. The funds have grown out of an initial award of about $26 million that the federal Indian Claims Commission issued in 1979 as purported compensation for land losses and mining extractions due to "gradual encroachment" by non-Native settlers and businesses onto the land dating back to the 1800s.

But for over two decades, the funds have remained untouched. Some Western Shoshone leaders have criticized the offer as an attempt to swindle the community out of land historically considered theirs. Opponents cite the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley delineated the borders of Western Shoshone land and provided guidelines for future industrial development and settlement.

Alarmed by the Distribution Act as well as other legislative initiatives to open up "federal" lands for government and private development, Western Shoshone activists sought a judgment from the UN last July. In their formal request, the petitioners wrote that "violations have persisted and in fact intensified despite… reports, findings and recommendations from international human rights bodies," including CERD.

Indigenous rights groups say the Distribution Act could legitimize the pattern of rights abuses and land exploitation that have been escalating for the past generation, unchecked by courts or lawmakers. Tim Coulter, executive director of the Indian Law Resource Center, said that unlike individual US citizens, who enjoy full constitutional protections, "Congress has for all intents and purposes completely unlimited power to do as it pleases with [Native American nations] and their property."

The disputed territory is prime real estate for the mining industry, yielding the majority of the country's gold supply and ranking among the world's largest gold-producing areas, according to a 1999 report by the mining-industry watchdog group Project Underground. Around the beginning of 2005, under the authorization of the Bureau of Land Management, gold-mining companies ramped up their exploration projects on Western Shoshone territory. In addition, energy corporations and officials, including Reid, are eyeing parts of theregion as major prospects for geothermal energy development.

The land claimed by the Western Shoshone Nation also contains Yucca Mountain, Nevada, where the Department of Energy aims to build a highly controversial nuclear waste repository.

Advocates for the Western Shoshone say that for decades, the government has treated them as if they were trespassers on federal property, aggressively restricting some natives from so much as living and working on their land.

A 1974 lawsuit filed by the Department of Interior against two Western Shoshone sisters, Mary and Carrie Dann of Crescent Valley, NV, helped solidify the government's territorial grasp. The Danns challenged fines charged by the Bureau of Land Management for cattle-grazing without a permit, claiming instead that the grazing took place on their own land.

'Extinguishing' Ruby Valley: How the federal government took away Western Shoshone land rights

The Supreme Court in 1985 upheld the Indian Claims Commission's position that gradual encroachment had "extinguished" Western Shoshone territorial entitlements. The court also affirmed the Department of Interior's claim that it had acted as a "trustee" of the Western Shoshone and "accepted" the compensation funds on their behalf.

Since then, the government has continued to crack down on the Danns' livelihood. In 2002 and 2003, federal officials staged confrontational raids, seizing over 200 cattle and threatening to impound several hundred horses belonging to the family.

Carrie Dann, now in her seventies and a figurehead for the Western Shoshone indigenous-rights movement, views the Distribution Act as an assault on cultural values embedded in ancestral lands. "How do you pay for spirituality? How do you buy somebody's religious beliefs?" she said. "How do you come out smelling like a rose when you've pushed money down people's throat for something that they don't want to part with?"

Just how many Western Shoshone support or oppose the payout is a subject of fierce debate. For individuals, the financial stakes are high: divided among the estimated eligible population of more than 6,000, recipients could receive as much as $30,000 each, and a small portion of the total funds has been set aside as an educational trust. Proponents of the bill argue that the Western Shoshone indicated overwhelming support for the Act in "straw poll" referendums administered by a self-appointed "steering committee" of Western Shoshone who have split with more traditional tribal leaders.

Responding the CERD ruling, Ari Rabin-Havt, a spokesperson for Reid's office, cited the polls and argued, "The UN might have said something, but the tribe itself agrees with what Senator Reid did."

But critics of the settlement suspect that the polls were political implements, asserting that the results lacked supporting documentation and covered an unrepresentative sample. Moreover, seven of the nine tribal councils within the Western Shoshone Nation passed resolutions opposing the legislation, with demands that all territorial issues be settled before moving forward on any such deal.

The resolution passed by the South Fork Band Council of Spring Creek, NV, urged the US Senate to "look at the best interests of the Shoshone people as a whole, and not individuals that have a different, biased agenda which will not address the needs of our people and the future generations."

Fishel of the Western Shoshone Defense Project said that politicians' focus on financial recompense is both shortsighted and telling. "This isn't about the money," she told TNS. "It's about human rights violations; it's about protection of culture and spirituality, clean water, clean air. That's what the Shoshone are talking about."

Environmental and indigenous-rights groups warn that allowing the government and industry to further exploit native lands could aggravate environmental problems, ranging from mercury pollution caused by gold mining to potential contamination by nuclear-waste storage sites.

The Geneva proceedings have brought US policies toward Native American communities directly under the scrutiny of the international human-rights regime. Presenting supportive petitions with over 13,000 US signatures, the Western Shoshone delegation pressed CERD for an immediate response.

The US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva argued, according to a March 2 United Nations press release, that "the issues the petitioners had raised were not 'novel,'" and no special action was warranted. But CERD ultimately issued its decision under a special "Early Warning and Urgent Action" procedure. The US has until July 15 this year to respond to the Committee.

Activists have celebrated the ruling somewhat cautiously – as an international recognition of a problem that is too often ignored domestically. Pete Litster, executive director of the anti-nuclear activist group Shundahai Network, speculated that the US could simply continue disregarding international opinion on issues like nuclear-waste storage and indigenous rights.

Litster said that while Shundahai, which campaigns against nuclear-related projects on Native American lands, supports indigenous-rights advocacy at the UN, the main question lingers: "What now is there to be done to force the United States to comply with that decision – and to comply with the wishes of the Western Shoshone – about how their land is to be used and about how they're going to be allowed to participate in the decision-making [process]?"

Yet for all the political questions encircling Western Shoshone activists, people like Carrie Dann are anchored by a resolutely straightforward answer: "The water, the air and all those things are sacred.... That's our identity, that's who we are. And that's not for sale."

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Casper Star Tribune
March 16, 2006

Tribe considering placing nuclear waste on reservation

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The utility consortium that wants to store nuclear waste on a Utah Indian reservation has asked Congress to consider allowing the Energy Department to become one of its clients and move nuclear waste to Utah, or at least reimburse utilities that choose to use the temporary storage site.

The idea by Private Fuel Storage was an unpleasant surprise to members of Utah's congressional delegation, who doubt it will go anywhere.

"On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation's nuclear waste policy," Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News.

Bennett said PFS has repeatedly stressed its independence from the government.

"Now it wants the government to take over. The about-face of this letter demonstrates PFS sees that its options continue to dwindle," he said. "They're grasping for options, but this one won't work, either."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it would be a huge mistake for Congress to introduce any bills that would help PFS and so far no one has indicated they would do so.

"I'm not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project," Hatch said.

Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn told Congress in a letter that it would cost less to move waste to Utah than for the government to pay court settlements to utilities that still have waste.

"It would reduce tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' liability while permitting fuel movement within a three-year period to the only available central interim location currently vetted through the licensing program to ensure safety and security for this large quantity of material," Parkyn wrote.

The federal government was supposed to open a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in 1998. But that project has faced a series of obstacles.

Utilities have sued the government, and in some cases have received millions of dollars, for breaking its promise to take the waste by the 1998 deadline.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued PFS a license to open the temporary nuclear storage site on the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation last month.

Congress has helped Utah block movement of waste to the site by creating a wilderness area that project opponents believe will prevent transporting waste to the site by rail.

The PFS letter, dated Dec. 13, went to Congress a week after the Supreme Court declined to consider Utah's case against the site and is just making its way to congressional offices now, the News said.

Congress has established a record that waste would not go to PFS with the government's help, according to Scott Parker, chief of staff for Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

"The letter appears to have been sent over right about the time Rob and the delegation were successful in creating wilderness to block the rail spur needed to haul in the waste," Parker said. "So this may have just been PFS trying to react in some way to a legislative loss for them and a big victory for Utah. There doesn't appear to be anything new or ground-breaking in the memo."

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the bill supported by Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations to leave waste on site at nuclear power plants until the government can come up with a better disposal policy is a better alternative.

Joe Hunter, chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said getting the department to own the waste before moving it to Nevada is an option worth considering, but PFS's latest proposal is "a nonstarter."

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Deseret News
March 16, 2006

Feds cool over PFS proposal

By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department has an "open mind" when it comes to using a temporary storage site before permanently moving nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But the proposed Private Fuel Storage facility in Utah may not be what it has in mind, according to a department official.

PFS, which wants to store 40,000 tons of used nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute reservation in Tooele County, sent a letter to Congress asking for it to consider having the Energy Department be its client — or at least reimburse utilities that want to store fuel there — but based on comments made at two House hearings Wednesday, it does not sound like something the Energy Department would want.

"We have never really considered Private Fuel Storage as something consistent with our obligations to take spent fuel under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act," said Clay Sell, deputy energy secretary. "We think the right answer is for the United States government to get in a position to take possession of spent fuel at an appropriate federal geologic repository, because otherwise we are just building up our liabilities for spent-fuel management."

Sell testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday at a hearing specifically looking at the status of the department's Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The government aims to store 77,000 tons of used nuclear fuel inside the mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Sell said the department has an open mind for other interim storage options but that Congress would need to approve such a change.

The department is overdue in submitting Yucca's license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Sell said he expects a new schedule for when the license would be done by June or July.

Meanwhile, Rep. Pete Visclosky of Indiana, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, asked the department's top Yucca official to respond in writing on whether PFS's proposal is worth considering and if not, why not.

At a separate hearing on the department's nuclear waste budget, Paul Golan, the acting head of the Yucca Mountain Project, told the subcommittee that he was not familiar with the PFS offer but that the department believes opening Yucca is the best solution.

Visclosky said he just wants to know what the department's position on the idea is but would not say what he thought of it personally.

Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, said he did not care if interim storage was done privately or by the federal government but that it needs to be considered.

Even if the department does not opt to work with PFS, the company is still shopping around to commercial nuclear utilities that need to have another option to store their used nuclear fuel. PFS Chairman John Parkyn has said that storing waste at PFS, which now has a license approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would be a cheaper option for those storing waste on site.

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KSL-TV
March 16, 2006

Energy Department: No Plans to Move Nuke Waste to Utah

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Moving nuclear waste to a private storage facility proposed for a Utah Indian reservation is not part of the government's plans right now, an Energy Department spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The department has received a letter in which Private Fuel Storage, a group of utilities proposing to build the storage site, suggests the department become one of its clients, said the spokesman, Craig Stevens. But the department is sticking to its original plans to open a federal repository in Nevada, he said.

"We are committed to licensing, constructing and opening Yucca Mountain," Stevens said.

The letter from Private Fuel Storage is dated Dec. 13, 2005, but is just now making its rounds on Capitol Hill.

In it, PFS chairman and CEO John Parkyn suggests to several members of Congress that the government could save billions of dollars by joining the consortium, or by reimbursing utilities that store their waste at the site.

PFS wants to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel above ground on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation about 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

It won a 20-year license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year despite loud objections from Utah's state and federal lawmakers, who fear storing waste so close to a major city is unsafe.

But the license was granted just as several of the utilities that make up PFS announced they were no longer interested in the project. To begin construction, the company must prove to the NRC that it has enough money to go forward.

The facility was planned to be an interim storage site until the federal government opened Yucca Mountain.

Yucca Mountain is still years away from operating, however, and the government still faces many hurdles before it will open.

In his letter, Parkyn said moving waste to PFS's site would be cheaper, safer and more practical than storing it in several locations across the country.

"This is a solution now," Parkyn wrote. "A great opportunity exists for the federal government."

But Utah's lawmakers are not pleased with the idea.

"I think it would be a huge mistake for any of (the lawmakers who received the letter) in the House or the Senate to introduce legislation to help PFS," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. "I have no indication that they would be favorable to doing so."

PFS is still seeking approval from several federal agencies to be able to open its site. Congress also created a federal wilderness area near the PFS site that opponents hope will block movement of nuclear waste there by rail.

Hatch has spoken with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman about the project before, and plans to meet with him again soon, Hatch's spokesman Peter Carr said Wednesday.

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Salt Lake Tribune
March 16, 2006

House panel wants look at PFS pitch

On energy panel: They want DOE to consider storing hot waste in Utah

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Two U.S. House leaders on energy policy said Wednesday that they want the Energy Department to at least consider an offer by a private company to store the nation's spent nuclear fuel in Utah.

In a December letter to House and Senate energy leaders, Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn offered his planned Tooele County storage site as an immediate solution to the Energy Department's quandary over what to do with the nuclear fuel. He said PFS could take 44,000 tons of fuel at a cost of $60 million a year.

Paul Golan, acting director of the Energy Department's nuclear waste program, told the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday that he hadn't seen the letter and couldn't comment.

Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind,, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, asked Golan to look at the proposal and report back to the committee whether the offer is worth pursuing, "and if the answer is negative, why not?"

"I just want them to respond to it," Visclosky said after the hearing.

And when asked after the hearing whether the PFS proposal should be considered, subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, replied: "Sure. We've got to do something."

"I don't think it's in the best interest of this country to let all these sites sit out there with this stuff exposed," Hobson said.

Despite the signals of interest from Hobson and Viclosky, Utah's delegation, which has been fighting the PFS plan for a decade, scoffed at Parkyn's proposal.

"I'm not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. "I think it would be a huge mistake for any of these members - in the House or the Senate - to introduce legislation to help PFS. I have no indication that they would be favorable to doing so."

Under law, the federal government was required to take possession of the spent nuclear fuel at reactors around the country by Jan. 31, 1998. The waste was supposed to be buried beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Several nuclear utilities have sued the Energy Department and been awarded damages for the agency failing to meet its obligation.

However, Yucca is now well behind schedule: A license application will not be filed until late next year, at the earliest. Golan said it may be able to be opened in the next decade.

The Energy Department is also initiating a move toward reprocessing nuclear waste - a process that could potentially allow some of the nuclear material to be re-used in a new breed of nuclear reactor.

But that technology is years down the road. In the meantime, Hobson has argued the waste should be stored at a centralized, temporary facility, or possibly several temporary facilities.

Sen. Bob Bennett said PFS has always billed itself as a project independent from the government, and the "about-face" in Parkyn's letter doesn't mean a similar shift in government policy.

"On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation's nuclear waste policy. That position has not changed," Bennett said in a statement.

Bennett is co-sponsoring legislation with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., allowing the government to take ownership of the spent reactor fuel and store it at the sites where it was produced until a reprocessing alternative is available.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said Parkyn's request is "a poorly written letter about a poorly thought-out proposal."

"We don't see indications that Congress is inclined to address Mr. Parkyn's ideas," Bishop said. "In fact, there have been numerous clarifications over the past few months that neither the administration nor various leaders in Congress believe the PFS-Goshute project is or will be a part of the nation's plan for dealing with high level nuclear waste."

Hobson has not specifically advocated for PFS in the past, but he is an outspoken proponent of building at least one - and possibly several - government-run temporary storage sites for spent nuclear fuel.

"I think we do believe there are people in this country who would fight for [above-ground storage]. It's not this horrible deal where this stuff is going to explode and destroy a whole city," Hobson said.

Last year, he included language in a report accompanying a House budget bill urging the Energy Secretary to pursue interim storage. But in a discussion on the House floor, Bishop clarified that the storage recommendation was meant to focus attention on existing DOE sites, not to consider any private storage.

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Guardian
March 15, 2006

Project Head Details Nuclear Dump Progress

Wednesday March 15, 2006 10:16 PM

By ERICA WERNER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A long-delayed nuclear waste dump in Nevada that has cost $9 billion so far is years away from opening, the project's director told frustrated lawmakers Wednesday, and will be at capacity from radioactive waste now accumulating.

The Energy Department also plans to determine the need for a second site for an underground dump, said Paul Golan, acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

Department officials had most recently set 2012 as the projected opening for the first nuclear waste dump, at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but have backed off that goal. Golan would only say Wednesday, ``We should be able to open it next decade.'' The original target was 1998.

``It's obvious the 2012 date is now out the window,'' said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations' energy subcommittee.

Some 55,000 tons of waste are collecting at commercial reactor sites in 39 states and high-level waste is being stored at defense sites, too. Yucca Mountain is supposed to hold 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

``Frankly I don't want to build eight Yucca Mountains,'' said Hobson, who has pressed the department to establish interim, aboveground storage sites for nuclear waste.

Golan said his understanding is the department does not have the power to do that without congressional approval. The House agreed to the idea last year, but the Senate rejected it.

Lawmakers are awaiting a proposal from the administration to facilitate the con. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the proposal would include changing the way Yucca is funded and withdrawing public land around the property to create a permanent site for the dump.

In combination with the administration's new plan to recycle nuclear waste, these steps could postpone indefinitely the need to find a second dump site, Sell said in written testimony.

The department still must apply for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open Yucca Mountain. Golan said the department will not be ready for that step until after the budget year that ends Sept. 30, 2007, but he said a better schedule should be developed this summer.

Among Yucca Mountain's problems are a federal court's rejection of the government's original radiation safety standards for the dump; a controversy over fabricated quality assurance data; and political opposition from home-state lawmakers, including Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate's top Democrat.

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KUTV
March 15, 2006

PFS Seeks Federal Nuke Waste Involvement

The utility consortium that wants to store nuclear waste on a Utah Indian reservation has asked Congress to consider allowing the Energy Department to become one of its clients and move nuclear waste to Utah, or at least reimburse utilities that choose to use the temporary storage site.

The idea by Private Fuel Storage was an unpleasant surprise to members of Utah's congressional delegation, who doubt it will go anywhere.

``On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation's nuclear waste policy,'' Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News.

Bennett said PFS has repeatedly stressed its independence from the government.

``Now it wants the government to take over. The about-face of this letter demonstrates PFS sees that its options continue to dwindle,'' he said. ``They're grasping for options, but this one won't work, either.''

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it would be a huge mistake for Congress to introduce any bills that would help PFS and so far no one has indicated they would do so.

``I'm not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project,'' Hatch said.

Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn told Congress in a letter that it would cost less to move waste to Utah than for the government to pay court settlements to utilities that still have waste.

``It would reduce tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' liability while permitting fuel movement within a three-year period to the only available central interim location currently vetted through the licensing program to ensure safety and security for this large quantity of material,'' Parkyn wrote.

The federal government was supposed to open a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in 1998. But that project has faced a series of obstacles.

Utilities have sued the government, and in some cases have received millions of dollars, for breaking its promise to take the waste by the 1998 deadline.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued PFS a license to open the temporary nuclear storage site on the Goshutes' Skull Valley reservation last month.

Congress has helped Utah block movement of waste to the site by creating a wilderness area that project opponents believe will prevent transporting waste to the site by rail.

The PFS letter, dated Dec. 13, went to Congress a week after the Supreme Court declined to consider Utah's case against the site and is just making its way to congressional offices now, the News said.

Congress has established a record that waste would not go to PFS with the government's help, according to Scott Parker, chief of staff for Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

``The letter appears to have been sent over right about the time Rob and the delegation were successful in creating wilderness to block the rail spur needed to haul in the waste,'' Parker said. ``So this may have just been PFS trying to react in some way to a legislative loss for them and a big victory for Utah. There doesn't appear to be anything new or ground-breaking in the memo.''

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the bill supported by Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations to leave waste on site at nuclear power plants until the government can come up with a better disposal policy is a better alternative.

Joe Hunter, chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said getting the department to own the waste before moving it to Nevada is an option worth considering, but PFS's latest proposal is ``a nonstarter.''

``Who owns the waste is irrelevant if the idea is still to store it above ground on a reservation in Utah,'' Hunter said. ``This would appear to be a 'proposal' designed to salvage an ill-advised plan that is rapidly losing ground.''

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San Luis Obispo Tribune
March 15, 2006

Ready for a new career challenge

By Melanie Cleveland
mcleveland@thetribunenews.com

David Oatley has spent the majority of his career at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. He worked for the company for 23 years, spending the past eight as the highest ranking official at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

During his tenure, the plant continued to operate without interruption, despite community protests over nuclear power, a statewide energy crisis starting in 2000, and PG&E´s collapse into and eventual recovery from bankruptcy.

The past few years were relatively calm for Oatley, giving him enough stability to spearhead the approval of several major initiatives. These include spent-fuel, dry-cask storage and steam generator replacement projects, as well as a few more minor projects, all to be completed by 2010 at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion.

Before he left Diablo last week, Oatley spoke to The Tribune about his retirement, his experience as head of a nuclear power plant, the challenges he faced and the future of the nuclear power industry.

The announcement of your retirement and your departure came as a surprise to many people. What happened?

There are several theories in exit strategy management. One is to make it long and drawn out. Everyone knows you are going and you become a lame duck, so there´s a leadership vacuum. The other is to have a succession plan behind the scenes, and then you announce your departure and leave quickly. That was the one I chose. A couple of people knew what was happening six months ago and we brought in Donna Jacobs as vice president and director of nuclear services last year as part of my succession plan.

Why retire from the company now?

There is a lot of pressure running my kind of company. We are under a tremendous amount of scrutiny, we try to get approvals that prove difficult, and there is a lot of intervention. And there are long hours, typically 60 in a week. When we have outages, it´s more like 72 hours a week.

I knew I didn´t want to work under that kind of pressure at the same job for the rest of my life. ... I´ve wanted to retire early from the company for a while. There is only one nuclear plant under PG&E, and I wanted another challenge.

This is not unusual. Most people in my job typically only do it for five years before moving on to some other job.

Who will replace you?

My responsibilities go to both Donna Jacobs and Jim Becker (two vice presidents responsible for special, long term projects and day-to-day operations, respectively). Someone will probably be named general manager after the plant completely shuts down to replace three low-pressure turbines in April. At that time, we´ll do the normal refueling of the reactor and other normal maintenance in the plant.

Are you going to work somewhere else?

I´m open to a lot of options. I might consider working on a new plant somewhere else in the United States. I figure I have 10 good years left to work. I started my career building a plant. I might end my career building a plant. I may choose to stay here and consult in the nuclear industry elsewhere. Right now, I´m doing nothing for two or three months and play some golf.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when working at Diablo?

Pushing a necessary industry through public resistance. Nothing has been easy for Diablo when we work in California´s political climate. Compare that to other states in the country, such as the Carolinas, that actually offer tax incentives to attract nuclear plants. It´s taken a long time, but now that I´ve gotten approvals for the dry-cask storage on site, and a replacement plan for the steam generators and reactor heads in the years ahead, I think we´re in a good place to let Donna and Jim take over.

What could be done to improve the political climate for Diablo?

Other than move out of state? It would take a change in California´s social structure itself. To be fair to Diablo´s opponents, we do have a plant in a beautiful area and we are a community that wants to keep things pristine. And a few very vocal activists believe firmly that the plant should be shut down.

That´s not to say there aren´t people here who understand the importance of having Diablo´s power supply and contribution to the economy. In the county, it´s $650 million a year. On top of that we contribute $750 million a year to the state.

Maybe as time goes on, more people will recognize our value.

What´s been the most rewarding part of the job?

The people, without a doubt. We have some of the brightest, most committed people working at the plant. That´s one reason Diablo´s been so highly rated and that´s what I´ll miss the most. I also am very proud of my last 23 years in the power industry. We came through the last eight years solidly and safely. You just can´t beat that.

In terms of the plant´s future, how long will PG&E operate Diablo?

The company is licensed until 2025. We´ve applied for funds, $19 million, to study the feasibility of continuing operations beyond that.

A big, yet-to-be resolved nuclear issue is the storage of spent fuel. Assuming Yucca Mountain never opens, how long can PG&E safely store Diablo´s waste here on the plant´s property?

Yucca Mountain will open; it´s more of a political issue now than a technical one.

And while nuclear waste can be safely stored here on site, it makes better sense to store waste in a single place; for one thing, it´s more easily monitored in an aggregate setting.

We will also start extracting more of the used uranium. New technologies are becoming available to reprocess 90 percent of our nuclear waste. With 125 new nuclear plants being built in the world, reprocessing uranium will become increasingly valid.

So, you believe nuclear power has a long future in America?

Yes, and I´d like to say forever. There will always be a need to produce electricity and that need is growing, which puts a demand on traditional fuel supplies. Other sources are expensive, such as solar, and others are getting more expensive —the cost of natural gas, for instance, went up fourfold in the last three or four years. Still others, like hydro, can´t be produced at the same rate all year-round because of the inconstant energy supply.

What we can´t predict is the new technologies that will come forward to meet the demands, but I think nuclear power will always be part of a diverse portfolio of power, at least in the foreseeable future.

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Salem Statesman Journal
March 15, 2006

Guest Opinion

Nuclear-fuel reprocessing could make our world safer

John C. Ringle
March 15, 2006

Recycling spent nuclear fuel is a desirable goal. But before the government launches a major push for "reprocessing," we need to be aware of the problems from the no-holds-barred approach advocated by some policymakers in the administration and Congress. The fact is, the United States does not now have the policies, the technologies or the infrastructure in place to support reprocessing.

Despite the need to overcome several challenges before it can be used, reprocessing is definitely worth pursuing. Spent fuel is much too valuable for disposal. Currently, 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at nuclear power plant sites, including Trojan. This is not waste. More than 96 percent of this spent fuel is uranium and plutonium that can be reprocessed to make new reactor fuel known as mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) for nuclear power plants.

Although reprocessing would significantly reduce the toxicity and heat levels of the remaining waste, it would not eliminate the need for a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Unless the geologic repository is built, there will be no place to permanently store the remaining waste from nuclear plants and the defense program. Hence, the budget for the Yucca Mountain project (which is financed from payments to the Nuclear Waste Fund by electricity consumers) should not be siphoned off to pay for a reprocessing program. Both activities need to be carried out concurrently.

Because uranium and plutonium are recovered, reprocessing could extend nuclear-fuel supplies for thousands of years. Also, with reprocessing, there would be only one-fifth as much waste, and therefore no need to build a second repository. The remaining wastes would only need to be safely stored for a period of 500 to 1,000 years, rather than the 10,000-plus years required for spent fuel.

Such a commitment to nuclear power could not only stabilize but eventually reverse the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Critics claim that plutonium from reprocessing could be used to make nuclear weapons, but other nations -- notably France and Great Britain -- reprocess spent fuel, and no plutonium ever has been diverted from reprocessing facilities in those two countries.

In the form of MOX fuel, the plutonium is burned up in the reactor. Nuclear scientists in the United States are well aware of the necessity of making the reprocessing technologies proliferation-proof before they could be licensed for commercial operation.

Another challenge that must be overcome will be to reduce the cost of reprocessing, which is more expensive than uranium fuel from current sources. France figures that reprocessing adds only about 6 percent to the cost of nuclear-energy production, and we should be able to match these numbers.

Reprocessing presents a unique opportunity for international cooperation. By asking Congress to provide funds for a major reprocessing research and development program, then asking other countries to join in the effort, President Bush could secure a multinational commitment to nonproliferation. That would provide a solid foundation for the continued expansion of nuclear power and investment in America's energy future, and help secure a safer world environment.

John C. Ringle of Corvallis is a professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University. He can be reached at ringlejc@ne.orst.edu.

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Asbury Park Press
March 15, 2006

Readers divided over future of Lacey nuclear power plant

Letters: Safe escape not guaranteed

The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Plant in Lacey should be closed. As residents who live in the 10-mile radius of Oyster Creek, we offer the following reasons:

The evacuation route is not sufficient for a safe escape if a nuclear accident happens. Even though plant officials state there is a slim chance of a deadly accident, there is still a chance. Oyster Creek has one of the poorest safety performances in the nation and it is only getting older. Chances of an accident can increase.

The pile-up of spent nuclear fuel rods off Route 9 is extremely dangerous. The negative impact on the environment (water contamination and dead fish) is detrimental to everything that lives in the area.

There are other sources of energy that could take the place of the plant.

Josephine and Frank Rizzo
BARNEGAT

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Why the big rush to build new reactors?

The federal government is encouraging construction of a new round of nuclear plants throughout the country and will subsidize them with federal funding. In anticipation of new reactors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has adopted licensing procedures that will help reduce construction costs and the time it takes to approve a plant.

Meanwhile, existing nuclear plants are still accumulating and producing the highly toxic waste byproduct. The taxpayers are paying for construction of the Nevada Yucca mountain disposal site, a site that is tied up in a federal lawsuit and has been rife with concerns that it might not be an adequate solution for the safe disposal of this waste.

The National Academy of Sciences estimates the peak radiation doses from some of the isotopes would be most dangerous for up to 300,000 years. With this in mind, is it responsible to breed a new generation of these plants, encouraging them with the gift of taxpayer money and expedited procedures?

Why isn't safe disposal the first priority of our leaders? Why weren't the questions of location permits and construction approved before spending billions of taxpayer dollars?

Sadly, it appears the political influence of the boiler industry, an industry that has blanketed the world with nuclear plants and polluting burners, is gilding the rational thought process of the issue.

Thomas J. Cervasio
ENVIROWATCH
BERKELEY

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Nuclear energy costs the least

Perspective is often an all-clarifying concept. We continue to read about the assault on the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey by the Asbury Park Press and radical members of the environmentalist community who have already decided the plant must go. I thought a little perspective is in order.

A single year of the operation of Oyster Creek means that 7.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide are not emitted into the atmosphere. This is the amount that would be dumped into the atmosphere by a replacement coal plant. That's equivalent to 2 million cars, or nearly half the cars in New Jersey.

At a time when energy costs are going through the roof, Oyster Creek stands out as among the best in production and efficiency. In 2005, Oyster Creek generated energy at a cost of $17.38 per megawatt. In comparison, the average production cost for a coal plant is $35 per megawatt and for an oil-fired plant $90. A natural gas plant spends $245 to generate one megawatt of electricity. Without Oyster Creek and its sister producers of electricity, our electric bills would be significantly higher and, in some cases, unsustainably higher than they are now.

As the world finally accepts the reality that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening our existence and changing our weather patterns, as demonstrated by the havoc wreaked on the Gulf Coast last year, it is clear we better find alternatives to dumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. One alternative we don't have to find is nuclear energy because it is already here. It is clean, it is efficient, it is reliable and it is cheap.

Nicholas J. Mihalic
BELMAR

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Replacement energy is too expensive

The folks at the Asbury Park Press seem to be confused about their position on energy providers and energy costs in New Jersey.

As they continued their assault on Oyster Creek, the nuclear power plant in Lacey, in an effort to have that facility closed, they also railed on their editorial page about the increased cost of energy.

The closure of Oyster Creek, as advocated by the Press, will drive energy costs in New Jersey through the roof. The average generation cost for a megawatt of electricity in a nuclear power plant is somewhere around $18, while the cost to generate the same amount of electricity in a natural gas-fired plant is nearly 15 times that amount, or $265 per megawatt.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you take Oyster Creek off the grid, what it's replaced with will cost way more than the $18 per megawatt it is currently putting into the mix.

The Press, on the one hand, is trying to shoot the goose that laid the golden eggs while at the same time blaming that goose for the problems that will be created after it's been shot to death. Huh?

Thomas Furey
DOVER TOWNSHIP

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Attack would ruin Jersey Shore region

My wife and I have lived in the Barnegat area for 15 months and love it. We are in an active adult community and get to enjoy South Jersey sites such as Long Beach Island, Barnegat Bay, the Toms River area with its shopping malls and fine restaurants, the fast-growing town of Stafford and its beautiful lake, excellent malls and eateries, and nearby Atlantic City with its excellent stage productions, championship fights, casinos, etc.

However, all of these localities would be affected by any mishap at the ancient Oyster Creek nuclear plant such as a terrorist attack, radiation leak, etc. It is absurd to think this facility is a fortress capable of sustaining any type of military aggression. I ride past the site a few times a week and have observed that any sinister plot would require little effort to succeed. A terrorist could easily gain close enough access to place bombs or use bazookas to severely damage Oyster Creek.

I have seen traffic jams on the Belt Parkway, Long Island Expressway, George Washington Bridge, etc. Any accident or attack on the nuclear plant, causing radioactive substances to permeate the atmosphere would, contrary to Oyster Creek management and Nuclear Regulatory Commission statements, cause "the mother of all gridlocks." The alleged evacuation plan is a figment of the imagination. It will never come to pass due to the natural, human panic reaction inherent in such situations.

We can no longer trust the wisdom of our leaders to safeguard us, as evidenced by the Bush administration's inept sanctioning of the private takeover of our ports by those who have given money and other forms of aid to the enemy who attacked us in New York.

If the powers-that-be allow the license of Oyster Creek to be renewed, which would be a political sham, then we will consider placing our lovely, highly taxed home on the market and moving. We knew about the political corruption and high taxes in Jersey, but we were willing to sacrifice in the hope it would get better. However, life-and-death issues come to the forefront. A mass homeowners' flight from this area will take place if Oyster Creek is not closed.

Andy Rizzo
BARNEGAT

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"Meltdown" odds are very remote

Your series concerning the nuclear plant in Lacey is journalism at its worst. ("Relicensing Oyster Creek: Is it worth it?" Feb. 12-16.) You have set out with a preconceived goal to close the plant down.

To support your goal, you have deliberately used scare tactics, both in words and illustration. (The front-page picture Feb. 14 of the disabled Waretown resident is an example.) You distorted facts by overplaying the negative and downplaying the positive benefits to taxpayers and the general public. You have buried the astronomical odds against a "meltdown" in small type in your articles and emphasized all the things that, in your opinion, might go wrong, even though the odds are extremely remote.

I find these articles most disturbing. I believe the license should be renewed, that the owners have and are acting in good faith, and that the plant is clean, safe and the best alternative to coal-fired plants that pollute the air around us.

As an old reporter and editor, I believe you should let facts speak for themselves in an impartial way. You are not doing that.

Albert L. Mc Nomee
LACEY

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Our nation needs nuclear energy

Your emphasis regarding Oyster Creek appears to be one of opposition to the very existence of the plant. We are facing a dwindling energy supply and the need to import more and more fossil fuels for electricity, automobiles as well as manufacturing, with an upward spiral of costs and pollution in all areas to the public.

This year alone, we have seen more than a dozen people killed in accidents as a result of mining coal, a source of fuel for generating electricity in the United States, compared to no one killed in the United States as a result of nuclear energy. Quite a comparison when one thinks there was a time when cars, electricity, flying, television and even cell phones were claimed to be hazards to human health.

It is time we realized that progress calls for us to explore and develop alternatives to the fuel sources we rely on. One of these fuels is nuclear energy. We need Oyster Creek and more of these plants. Safety is, and should be, a concern, but progress requires that we develop and improve, not retreat to a shell.

Those living near all generating plants have to be aware — just as those living near hurricane-, tornado- or earthquake-prone areas, factories, airports and even other developed areas must know — what precautions should be taken relating to their neighborhood. All have taken lives and property in the past year, but we are not eager to close them all down or run away from them.

Oyster Creek has been a good neighbor and should continue to be welcomed as a part of the community. We need Oyster Creek.

Bob Edwards
HOWELL

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Costly improvements too expensive

Thank you for publishing your series on the Oyster Creek plant "Relicensing Oyster Creek: Is it worth it?" It is a fine community service.

The plant should be shut down. The only way to do this is to make it more costly to plant operator AmerGen to continue operations than to shut down. If they have to install costly equipment to comply with environmental requirements, perhaps they can find a buyer.

As Americans know, money is more important than people in the United States today.

Doris Beckmann
OCEAN GATE

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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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