Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, March 19, 2006
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Las Vegas SUN
March 19, 2006
Nuke firms seek support for Utah site
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON - The nuclear industry consortium that is trying to establish a private temporary radioactive waste dump on Goshute Indian land in Utah quietly appealed to Congress for support after its top investors pulled out of the project.
The group of nuclear utilities known as Private Fuel Storage LLC, sent a letter to lawmakers in December, suggesting that the site would be a great temporary dump site for waste ultimately bound for the long-delayed permanent repository planned for Yucca Mountain, the Deseret News reported last week.
The letter was sent about a week after Private Fuel Storage's top two private nuclear utility investors withdrew their support for the interim dump project. The utilities backed out, saying they were encouraged by the government's apparent commitment to constructing Yucca.
The withdrawals left the corporation scrambling for business, so it sought out Congress, hoping that lawmakers might consider the Utah site as a temporary government waste dump.
The department is liable for the highly radioactive material that comes out of the nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants, where the waste has been piling up for decades. The Energy Department - which means, taxpayers - faces hundreds of millions of dollars in rising liability penalties because it did not begin hauling the industry's waste away by 1998.
The government wasn't biting at the Private Fuel's offer. Last week Energy Department Deputy Secretary Clay Sell told a House panel that the department was committed to developing Yucca, not shipping the waste off to a temporary site in Utah.
The Energy Department is considering its option to establish a temporary government waste site, but the department has never really considered the Goshute Indian site a good option, Sell said.
Utah lawmakers have long opposed that site and vowed to fight any new attempt to lobby Congress for support. "They're grasping for options, but this one won't work either," Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, told the Deseret News
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Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 19, 2006
Security, storage still major concerns
By Doug Abrahms
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Nuclear power may be gaining popularity, but the industry faces a few major obstacles, including what to do with used radioactive material and threats of terrorist attacks.
In response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission raised its security requirement for nuclear reactors, requiring them now to be prepared for attacks from groups of at least five terrorists instead of just three.
But the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group focusing on security issues, wants the NRC to raise that minimum protection level to a dozen terrorists who might be armed with weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades or an explosive that could crack concrete containers that hold radioactive material.
A nuclear plant cannot count on quick help from local police or SWAT teams because they take too much time to deploy, said Pete Stockton, an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight.
"Normally these attacks are over in three to eight minutes," he said.
Nuclear power plants have significantly beefed up protections against attacks, although they can't be specific about the force they can repel, said Steve Floyd, a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents electric companies. He said that given the oversight from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Homeland Security Department, nuclear plants are better protected than other critical infrastructure.
Floyd said groups like the Project on Government Oversight raise the safety issue because they want to close existing nuclear plants. He added that even if a terrorist attack caused damage to a nuclear power plant, the number of fatalities would be lower than destroying a liquid natural gas terminal or a chlorine factory.
Disposing of used fuel from power plants that contains uranium, plutonium and other radioactive material remains another problem. The U.S. designated its only high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., but that project has run into court challenges and is years behind schedule.
"In terms of radioactive waste, that's still a mess with all the eggs in the Yucca Mountain basket," said John Holdren, an environmental professor at Harvard University, who supports increased nuclear energy.
Building a few nuclear power plants in the U.S. won't significantly lower the volume of greenhouse gases released, which leads to global warming, he said. That would require the number of U.S. nuclear plants to double or triple, and that would create tremendous amounts of nuclear waste, he said.
The technology to reprocess nuclear waste still isn't efficient, he said, so the U.S. should store its nuclear waste in large, concrete containers at centralized government facilities. Long-term storage proposals can be developed later, he said.
Last week, the Nuclear Energy Institute for the first time called on the government to move nuclear waste from commercial power plants onto federal facilities. Previously, the group saw Yucca Mountain as the only solution to taking used nuclear fuel from commercial power plants.
"We want to see the fuel moved off the plant sites as fast as possible," said Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the group. "Yucca Mountain is the best solution for the used fuel. But it's not a scientific problem, it's a political problem" to build, he said.
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ProgressiveU
March 18, 2006
The Global Oil Production Peak and its Effects on the Field of Recreation and Leisure Services
The rise in oil prices and the inevitable event of global oil production peak will affect the recreation and leisure services field severely. Travel and tourism will be devastated to a point that will reflect the era of railroads, steamboats, and canals. Retail and the recreation and leisure services industries will have to become much more locally based. Oil is necessary to keep these industries profitable and available. If there is no more oil left, or more realistically, if the oil that is left is too expensive to retrieve, these industries will not be able to function as they have been for the past century. Alternative energies may help to a certain degree, but nothing will be able to replace the energy cheap oil has provided the world for the past century.
The global oil production peak is the point at which the production of oil has reached its maximum and starts to fall. Defined by James Howard Kunstler, an advocate of alternative energies and commentator on fossil fuel issues, “the global oil production peak is the point at which we have extracted half of all the oil that has ever existed in the world- the half that was easiest to get, the half that was most economically obtained, the half that was the highest quality and cheapest to refine’ (Kunstler, 24). When the global oil production peak occurs, planes, automobiles, ships, plastics, and many other modern day commodities will decline in productivity until they expire completely. There will still be fossil fuels left but if it will take one barrel of oil to produce one barrel of oil, it will be an act of futility.
Alternative energies such as, wind, solar, water, coal and nuclear power, may assist in the transition of the expulsion of oil as the chief energy supplier, but they will not be able to keep the industries of travel, tourism and retail, as we know it today, afloat. Wind farms have an enormously positive impact on energy, in certain geographic locations, such as consistently windy areas, but in other areas wind power would not work so well. Solar power is useful only during sunny times of the year. Supposing there is a stretch of time where a lack of sun is evident, no power will be available.
Waterpower is an excellent source of energy, but it does have damaging effects on water quality and aquatic wildlife. Dams have a relatively short life span in relation to how we want to utilize energy. Silt and sediments build up in dams, and over time water flow lessens and so does the energy output it produces. Dams also run the risk of breaking away under the weight of the silt and sediment if it is not decommissioned and reconstructed first.
Nuclear power is a possibility, but nuclear waste is an unwanted substance. Nuclear waste looses its radioactive properties only after roughly 10,000 years. The proposed site to hold the radioactive waste currently in stock is Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The locals and the state government of Nevada are fighting to find another site for the waste. Currently, there are 400 nuclear power plants in the world, 109 of them being in the U.S. alone (Kunstler, 141). These 109 U.S. power plants produce 20 percent of consumed electricity in the U.S. therefore; at least 545 nuclear power plants must be built for the U.S. to provide current levels of electric consumption before the global oil production peak transpires.
Coal is the most potential candidate to replace oil yet there will be severe consequences. Coal is the greatest toxic air pollutant in the country. If coal would replace oil for its energy properties, air pollution would intensify. “Coal is linked to asthma and coal-fired power plants are chiefly responsible for acid rain’ (Kunstler, 118). Intensifying asthma and acid rain are detriments of having coal as oil´s replacement.
Many of the world´s chief investigators of the global oil production peak, M. King Hubbert, Colin J. Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, and Mathew Simmons, concur that the world´s peak will take place between the years 2000 and 2010. The agreed estimate of the earth´s total endowment of conventional oil is roughly two trillion barrels (Kunstler, 49). The world is now consuming around 27 billion barrels of oil per year. At the agreed year of global oil production peak, the rate of consumption, and assuming that the current rate of production and costs remain constant, the world only has 37 years left of oil remaining (Kunstler, 66). It is unlikely that all of the remaining oil will be utilized because some lie in wildlife preserves. Some are in the most forbidding climates such as Antarctica and the bottom of the ocean. And some will not be worth salvaging, for it takes more energy to produce it into useable, conventional oil than it would yield.
Some experts argue that the oil peak is in the distant future. The fact does remain, though, that the global oil production peak is inevitable. Most of these experts who state that the oil peak is nothing to worry about tend to be financed by oil companies and/or governments. Threat of the peak is bad for both businesses. Andrew Donaldson of the Bangor Daily News stated that “oil companies say there will be no peak, but their actions- more tankers being decommissioned than built, no new U.S. refineries built since 1976 and a spate of mergers over the past eight years- speak louder than words’ (Donaldson, p. A8 para. 5). Less oil tankers being utilized means less oil being transported. No new refineries being built means there is a lack of confidence, by the oil companies, in the increase of productivity.
Even if the oil company funded researchers are correct about when the oil production peak transpires, it will occur eventually. Experts reiterate that new technology is developing constantly. But, according to Thomas Petrie of Petrie Parkman & Co, an investment banking firm, “´using better technology is a mitigator, not a solution, to eventual oil-production declines´’ (Raabe, para. 13). The global oil production peak will arrive, and it will attack many industries that rely on cheap oil for its survival, travel and tourism, and retail will be among these industries.
Travel and tourism depend on cheap oil for their profits. Through oil, consumers drive, fly, and take cruise ships for vacations. When oil shortages increase, so will prices for gasoline, airfare, and vacations on cruise liners. In the future, only the elite will utilize air travel and vacations on cruise liners. Remote locations will be holiday spots for exclusive individuals who can afford obscene prices for transportation. The middle classes will take more holidays in their own local area where it will be affordable. Eventually, there will be no oil left even for the elite minority and the only way to travel would be means not dependant on oil.
Travel, tourism and retail all rely on transportation for their survival. To increase the cost of transportation is to damage these industries in a way that cannot be controlled but should at least be anticipated. “In some ways, it's a new trend for the tourism industry. In the past, increasing fuel prices had shown little effect on tourism numbers. But record-setting gas prices during mid-August and September [of 2005] seems to have set a barrier that travelers think twice about crossing’ (The Associated Press State and Local Wire [APSLW], 2005). Gas prices will continually rise in the future and as a result travel will become more expensive. If travel is more expensive tourism will suffer.
Retail is another element of recreation that will be affected by the global oil production peak. Wal-Mart, for example, depends on cheap oil for its profit making ability. The goods sold in Wal-Mart stores are produced thousands of miles away, flown or shipped to ports and a fleet of trucks transport products to Wal-Mart stores all over the U.S. Wal-Mart is able to sell their products cheaply because their system of production is based on cheap labor and transport. If either of these factors of production increases so will prices of their goods. Eventually, oil costs will be so high that Wal-Mart will cease to be effective. Daily trips to Wal-Mart will not be available. Modern day commodities, like tourism, will become available only on a local level. Downtown, common areas will be revived and retail will be run through family owned shops.
In the future, it is likely that travel will not be able to run on oil after a few dozen years after the global oil production peak. The railroads that were operated on coal during the American Industrial Revolution will become popular once again. Since automobiles will be obsolete with the expiration of oil, the inter-state highway system will be purchased by railroad companies. Sailing will replace ship tankers fueled by oil. Steamboats and canals will be utilized again to transport goods. Flying will be a rare occasion, likely either using small aircrafts or hot air balloons.
Everyone in the world depends on some form of recreation. Shopping and vacationing are just a couple examples Americans use for recreation. The global oil production peak is an inevitable event that will change our recreation practices. Flying out to the Cascade Mountains and traveling to the top of a fourteen thousand foot mountain will not be an opportunity after oil has been completely consumed. Cruse liners that have space for 2,000 individuals are either going to have to increase what they charge to make up the difference in fuel prices or become bankrupt. These enormous ships will become obsolete along with 747 aircrafts, Hummers, and the fleet of tractor-trailers that supply Wal-Mart´s products. Recreation will have to be much more locally based. Going to town will be an event, not a daily occurrence. Going to a concert with 50,000 other people will be replaced by singing songs in the living room. Shopping for a new dining room table will be substituted with building your own. Alternative energies will help in transitioning but never succeed oil´s legacy.
-Kunstler, J. H. (2005). The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Last Twenty-First Century. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press.
-Donaldson, A. (2005, July 19), When Global Oil Peaks. Bangor Daily News. p. A8. Retrieved December 2, 2005, from Lewis-Nexis Academy Universe database.
-Raabe, S. (2005, November 8). Running on Empty?. Denver Post. Retrieved December 2, 2005, from Lewis-Nexis Academy Universe database.
-Mouawad, J. (2005, November 10). An Oil Price Duel on Capitol Hill: 2 Senate Committees Interrogate Wary Oil Company Executives. The New York Times, pp. C1, C4.
-Deffeyes, K. S. (2001). Hubbert´s Peak. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
-Larimer, R. (2005, September 23). Gas Prices, Unemployment Blamed for Slump in Colorado Springs Summer Tourist Season. Colorado Springs Business Journal. Retrieved December 2, 2005, from Lewis-Nexis Academy Universe database.
-(2005, November 11). Fuel Costs Blamed for Tourism Declines. The Associated Press State and Local Wire. Retrieved December 2, 2005, from Lewis-Nexis Academy Universe database.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 16, 2006
DOE not ruling out any nuclear storage options
By Jennifer Talhelm
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Key lawmakers say they are not pursuing - for now - a suggestion by Private Fuel Storage that the federal government temporarily store nuclear waste at their proposed facility in Utah.
PFS, a group of utilities that won a license to store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel above ground about 50 miles west of Salt Lake City, pitched the idea to several members of Congress in a letter making its way around Capitol Hill this week.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has received the letter, but he and his staffers are still evaluating it, Domenici's spokesman Matt Letourneau said Thursday.
And a spokeswoman for New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the lead Democrat on the committee, said Bingaman has opposed the idea of interim storage so far.
The two will be important lawmakers to win over if PFS hopes to make the Department of Energy a client.
Another would be Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who chairs an appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development. Although Hobson asked an Energy Department official earlier this week whether the department should consider the offer, he has no plans to pursue any more information from the government, his spokeswoman Sara Perkins said Thursday.
In the letter, which is dated Dec. 13, 2005, PFS Chairman and CEO John Parkyn said that moving waste to PFS's facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation would save the government billions of dollars. He also said it would be safer and more practical than storing waste at several sites across the country.
PFS won its license earlier this year just as several of its members announced they were no longer interested in the project. To begin construction, PFS must show it has enough money. It also still must get approval from other federal agencies.
The Energy Department has said it is committed to storing waste in a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But recently, as the Yucca Mountain project has hit several obstacles delaying its opening, officials have said they will look at the possibility of storing waste temporarily somewhere else.
Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for PFS, said the company hopes their facility will be considered.
"We want to be part of the interim solution for spent nuclear fuel in this country," she said. "We have a license, we certainly have a head start. If we can be helpful to the government, that would be wonderful."
Craig Stevens, an Energy Department spokesman said Thursday that the department still has an open mind about how to store nuclear waste, but for the moment, using a private nuclear waste facility is not one of the options.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 17, 2006
Editorial: Billions wasted on Yucca
Nothing to show for huge expense but missed deadlines, lawsuits and a scientific dead-end
In the 1980s Congress settled on burial as the best method for getting rid of deadly waste accumulating at nuclear power plants around the country. In 1987 it decided that Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, should be studied as the sole burial site. Congress then established Jan. 31, 1998, as the day of Yucca Mountain's grand opening.
From the start, Nevada steadfastly opposed this plan and warned Congress that it would continue fighting against it because of the life-and-death safety issues involved. Nonetheless, the federal government clung to this arbitrary deadline.
But scientific facts have a way of disintegrating even the most solid of deadlines. Nevada's legal arguments, based on geological findings and the obvious hazards of nuclear-waste transportation, rendered the 1998 deadline dead on arrival. The Energy Department, in charge of studying Yucca Mountain, then tried a 2010 deadline. Then a 2012 deadline. They didn't stand up either.
Today the deadline is much more vague. "We should be able to open it next decade," Paul Golan said Wednesday. He is the acting director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Waste Management.
So far, the Energy Department has spent $9 billion on drilling tunnels and studying the mountain's suitability to safely contain the waste for hundreds of thousands of years. And to show for it, they have three missed deadlines, not a shred of evidence that burial is safe and 60 lawsuits from nuclear power companies seeking billions for having had to store the waste on their own properties for the past eight years.
It should be clear by now that Yucca Mountain cannot be made safe for nuclear waste storage. The government would be better off settling with the nuclear utility companies, perhaps by subsidizing their storage costs until a truly safe permanent solution is found.
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Indian Country Today
March 17, 2006
U.S. told to stop abuse of Western Shoshone
Brenda Norrell
Indian Country Today
GENEVA - With strong language calling for the United States to desist and halt the abuse of Western Shoshone human rights, the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued an ''Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure'' during its 68th session.
''The Committee has received credible information alleging that the Western Shoshone indigenous peoples are being denied their traditional rights to land, and that measures taken and even accelerated lately by the State party in relation to the status, use and occupation of these lands may cumulatively lead to irreparable harm to these communities,'' the committee said in its conclusions to the United States.
Praising the action of the U.N. committee, Bernice Lalo, among Western Shoshone in a delegation to Geneva, said the future of the people is at risk from gold mining and the unlawful seizure of land.
''We are Shoshone delegates speaking for a Nation threatened by extinction. The mines are polluting our waters, destroying hot springs and exploding sacred mountains - our burials along with them - attempting to erase our signature on the land.
''We are coerced and threatened by mining and federal agencies when we seek to continue spiritual prayers for traditional food or medicine on Shoshone land.
''We have endured murder of our Newe people for centuries, as chronicled in military records, but now we are asked to endure a more painful death from the U.S. governmental agencies - a separation from land and spiritual renewal.''
The committee advised the United States to ''freeze any plan to privatize Western Shoshone ancestral lands for transfer to multinational extractive industries and energy developers.''
Further, the United States was advised to desist from all activities on Western Shoshone ancestral lands in relation to natural resources, which are being carried out without consultation with the Western Shoshone and despite their protests.
''It notes in particular the reinvigorated federal efforts to open a nuclear waste repository at the Yucca Mountain; the alleged use of explosives and open-pit gold mining activities on Mount Tenabo and Horse Canyon; and the alleged issuance of geothermal energy leases at, or near, hot springs,'' the committee said.
The committee said it has been advised of reported resumption of underground nuclear testing on Western Shoshone ancestral lands.
Further, it advised the United States to stop imposing grazing fees, trespass and collection notices, horse and livestock impoundments and restrictions on hunting, fishing and gathering. The United States was told to halt arrests and rescind all past such notices to Western Shoshone people who were using their ancestral lands.
The committee's action challenges the U.S. government's assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90 percent of Western Shoshone lands, approximately 60 million acres in what is now referred to as Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California.
Joe Kennedy, a Timbisha Shoshone in the delegation to Geneva, said, ''The situation is outrageous and we're glad the United Nations Committee agrees with us. Our people have suffered more nuclear testing than anywhere else in the world and ... underground testing [is continuing] despite our protests.
''Yucca Mountain is being hollowed out in order to store nuclear waste. We cannot stand for it - this earth, the air, the water are sacred. People of all races must stop this insanity now in order to secure a safe future for all.''
Judy Rojo, Western Shoshone, said U.S. federal agencies are preventing Western Shoshone access to many sacred places.
''Our ancestors' burials are being dug up and placed into local museums' basement storage areas because of [a] surge of gold mines and nuclear developments. This is an outrage to our people!
''While others are allowed the freedom of religion, we are kept from the very same right. The Newe [people] use this ancestral land for sacred ceremonies.
''Truth is what it is - that can never change. We pray for the healing of our peoples, the land and the harassment and destruction to stop.''
Although the battle has been going on for some time, the delegation said there is now a dramatic rush by the federal government to finalize what they consider to be a settlement with the Western Shoshone.
After receiving the report form the Western Shoshone delegation, the committee said it is concerned by the United States' legal position that asserts that Western Shoshone peoples' legal rights to ancestral lands have been extinguished through gradual encroachment.
The initial request for U.N. intervention came from the Western Shoshone National Council, Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, Winnemucca Indian Colony and Yomba Shoshone Tribe. The committee's decision in March came after the United States failed to respond to previous requests for responses.
The committee told the United States that it has the obligation to guarantee the right of everyone to equality before the law in the enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, without discrimination based on race, color, or national or ethnic origin.
Praising the committee's decision to intervene, Steven Brady, Western Shoshone, said, ''Again, we are very pleased that our rights are finally being taken seriously and we look forward to positive actions being taken by the U.S.''
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Indian Country Today
March 17, 2006
Counting friends in Washington
Brenda Norrell
Indian Country Today
CRESCENT VALLEY, Nev. - Western Shoshone National Council Chief Raymond Yowell praised a U.N. committee for intervening to halt the United States' seizure of Western Shoshone lands for nuclear underground testing, nuclear dumping and gold mining, while criticizing the United States for manipulating federal laws as it claims to champion international human rights.
''This country claims to be the highest supporter of human rights around the world, but now this has come back to bite these same people,'' Yowell told Indian Country Today.
Yowell praised the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for issuing a stern warning to the United States to halt the abuse of Western Shoshone and the illegal seizure of their lands.
Pointing to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump planned for the Western Shoshone's sacred mountain in Nevada, Yowell said Western Shoshone never gave up the right to their land at Yucca Mountain.
Yowell sent a message and a warning to the United States: ''The first thing you have to have is this: You have to show that you own the land.''
The Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Bill of 2004, he said, has shown the Western Shoshone who their friends are in Washington, and who they are not. On this roster are two legislators: Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., masterminds behind the passage of the distribution bill.
''Senator Reid claims to help Indians in Nevada. We dispute this. What he has done has not helped us, it has harmed us. We are not among those who support him.''
Then, there is Gibbons on the House side.
''Gibbons used tactics that were unethical. He moved this legislation secretly when it was not even on the calendar to be acted on, a lot of arm twisting went on.''
Ultimately, there was President George Bush.
''Of course, the president signed it with a smile on his face,'' Yowell said.
Western Shoshone said the distribution bill attempts to authorize an alleged payoff at about 15 cents an acre for tens of millions of acres of disputed lands in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California.
Yowell said before passage of the distribution bill, Western Shoshone rights to this land were used as leverage to continue negotiations with the United States. However, after the bill's passage, Western Shoshone turned to the United Nations for intervention.
''That is when we put a heavy emphasis on international action.''
When the U.N. committee announced its decision to intervene, Yowell praised the Western Shoshone delegation to Geneva for their skills and expertise and the committee for its decision.
''I'm glad that they did it finally. We have been sending delegations over there for a long time.
''The National Council will meet and take action. What we might hope for is that the United States will take this opportunity to resolve this.''
Yowell said one primary issue is encroachment. Western Shoshone refute the United States' assertion that their territory was lost by encroachment.
''The encroachment on Western Shoshone territory by United States citizens is not a lawful way to take land.''
Yowell said the Western Shoshone message to the United States has always been, ''If this is a law, we would like to see the statutes.'' But when the United States is asked to provide the statute of law, Yowell said Western Shoshone always receive the same response.
''They just say that they took the land.''
Yowell pointed out that only 14 percent of Nevada is today privately owned and the majority of this land is located in Las Vegas and Reno. He said that the claim of land loss by encroachment of private citizens just does not stand up. If private citizens had taken over 55 percent of the Western Shoshone territory, it would be different; but that is not the case, he said.
Listing U.S. laws, including the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, Yowell said U.S. law and the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863 protects Western Shoshone rights to their territory.
''It shoots down the 'gradual encroachment' theory.''
The United States has not honored the Treaty of Ruby Valley, he said.
''What we have is the United States, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, Park Service and Atomic Energy agencies taking over Western Shoshone territory.''
Yowell said the Treaty of Ruby Valley was a treaty of peace and friendship and the Western Shoshone did not agree to give up their territory.
''We have not found where we have given consent to be included in the territory of Nevada.''
Praising the action by the U.N. committee, he said, ''This means we have been right all along. It is very disturbing - this nation is supposed to be a nation of law.''
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Rutland Herald
March 17, 2006
NRC member criticizes Yankee decision
Susan Smallheer
Herald Staff
One of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission´s five members believes Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant should not have been allowed to boost its power until safety concerns still under appeal had been resolved.
In a letter made public Thursday, NRC member Gregory Jaczko wrote to his fellow commissioners that he had “substantial concerns’ about letting Vermont Yankee produce more power immediately.
“I have substantial concerns about the decision to make the license amendment approving the requested Vermont Yankee extended power uprate application immediately effective,’ Jaczko wrote.
Several safety issues raised by the Department of Public Service and the ant-nuclear group New England Coalition about the power increase still are pending before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a quasi-judicial panel affiliated with the NRC. Hearings won´t take place until this fall.
“It appears that in complex cases like that confronting the NRC in Vermont Yankee´s application, the agency has misapplied the implementation of the ‘no significant hazards consideration´ determination,’ Jaczko wrote.
Under NRC procedure, the NRC staff must make a finding of “no significant hazards consideration’ before the uprate can go ahead. According to Jaczko, the staff only issued that finding after the final amendment was issued March 2, when usually such a determination is made very early in the review process, raising questions.
“This in and of itself reveals that this determination was obviously complex — more of an analysis regarding whether there were significant hazards rather than an analysis of whether the application involved significant hazards considerations,’ he wrote.
“Somewhere we strayed from our course,’ he wrote, saying he believed that the NRC staff had adopted procedures contrary to law.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Jaczko was only one member, and that his concerns would be addressed at a later meeting of the full board.
“He´s one of five commissioners and he´s free to express his concerns,’ Sheehan said.
He said Jaczko´s letter came after the New England Coalition filed a petition with the NRC on March 3 asking for a stay to prohibit the company from boosting power. That request came a day after the NRC issued Entergy Nuclear its final permit.
Entergy spokesman Robert Williams said Jaczko´s comments “are an issue between the commissioners’ and declined to comment.
Earlier in the day, Williams noted that computer analysis of the acoustic vibration in a steam line at the plant, which has essentially put the uprate on hold after a 5 percent boost, needed additional analysis which would take another week.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical adviser for the New England Coalition, couldn´t be reached for comment Thursday about Jaczko´s statement.
Jaczko, who has a doctorate in particle physics, has worked for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate minority leader who is one of the strongest critics of the plan to build a high-level nuclear waste facility in Yucca Mountain outside Las Vegas, as well as U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a long-standing nuclear critic.
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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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