Yucca Mountain News Clips - Friday, August 4, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, August 4, 2006
---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
August 04, 2006

Loux's credibility attacked by pro-Yucca Idaho senator

By Lisa Mascaro
Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON - Sparks typically fly at hearings on Yucca Mountain. Thursday's looked like a welding shop.

Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, a staunch supporter of plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca, let loose an attack on Bob Loux, Nevada's point man in opposing the project.

"I don't know that you have credibility before this committee," the senator said after hearing from Loux and others on a panel of experts appearing before the Senate Energy Committee. "Your purpose is to kill Yucca Mountain. Period. In that status, can you have any objectivity at all? I doubt it."

Loux has worked more than two decades on Yucca, testifying at more than two dozen Congressional hearings. As executive director of the Nevada Agency on Nuclear Projects, he has been appointed by a succession of governors, including most recently Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican.

Guinn's office stood by Loux. Nevada's advocacy on Capitol Hill is no different than that coming from members of the panel who supported Yucca.

"Nevada has made it clear that we do not want the nation's nuclear waste dumped in our back yard," said the governor's spokesman, Steve George. Loux, he said, "has been a longtime resource, and this governor and other governors depend on him very much."

Loux was not fazed by Craig. "I would compare my credibility to his any day of the week."

--Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 04, 2006

Project director says 'fix Yucca' bill must pass to make 2017 deadline

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- An Energy Department official said Thursday there is "zero" chance to meet new deadlines to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain unless Congress broadens DOE powers to keep the project moving forward.

Project director Ward Sproat urged senators to pass a "fix Yucca" bill to clear away potential problems that could delay DOE's latest repository deadline of 2017.

"The probability of making that schedule without the legislation is zero," Sproat said.

But repository critics said at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that DOE was trying to cut corners. The bill would allow DOE to run roughshod over Nevada and other states on transportation, water claims and handling of toxic waste, they said.

"You have before you a bill that attempts like a cowcatcher on a locomotive to anticipate and sweep aside every potential health and safety obstacle," said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"This bill overreaches and should be withdrawn," said Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Martin Virgilio, a deputy executive director at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also questioned the bill, saying it could cut short the NRC's time to carry out comprehensive safety reviews of the plan.

The committee chairman, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he was planning a scaled back version of the DOE bill for action this fall. He would not say what parts of the sweeping bill he would include and which parts he might scrap.

Domenici said he was taking the new DOE schedule with a grain of salt. The repository was supposed to have been operating by 1998, and a 2010 target opening also was abandoned.

"Experience has shown that the schedule for Yucca is a slippery thing," Domenici said, adding that the 2017 deadline contains no margins for future delays or lawsuits by the state of Nevada. Nor does it lay out how long it will take DOE to ship commercial fuel to the site once it has opened.

The DOE bill contains a dozen or so changes to federal law that Yucca managers say they need to lay the groundwork for repository licensing and construction.

Among other things, it would allow DOE to overcome Nevada resistance to obtain water rights, assert powers on waste transportation, reclassify a budget account so larger sums might be spent for construction, and repeal a 70,000 metric ton limit on how much waste can be stored in the mountain.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the DOE bill signals desperation.

"If Yucca were scientifically sound -- if it was genuinely safe -- we would not have this bill and we would not be here today," he said.

In testimony, Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. focused on a DOE bid to assert control over a portion of the Nellis Test and Training Range adjacent to the Yucca site.

The Energy Department is asking Congress in its bill to sign off on a 147,000-acre public land withdrawal that would give DOE prominence on 24,000 acres now run by the Air Force. It also calls for a no-fly zone around the repository.

"This is a very dangerous precedent to start and very dangerous for the national security of the United States," Ensign said.

Sproat said during a break that he was told the Air Force signed off on the land withdrawal when the bill was being formulated within the Bush administration. The Air Force would be allowed continued use of the land under terms to be set by DOE and the Pentagon, according to the DOE bill.

"The amount of land that is being withdrawn is less than 1 percent of the total area of Nellis Air Force Range and the no-fly zone is four miles in radius," Sproat told senators. "The Air Force did not see a problem."

Loux said he found it hard to believe the Air Force would agree to overflight and land use restrictions given it customarily has been protective of its training areas.

"People at Nellis have told us they would never agree to a no-fly zone," Loux said.

Air Force officials at Nellis Air Force Base and at the Pentagon did not respond to queries by deadline.

DOE officials said the Pentagon has an interest in completing the Yucca repository because thousands of tons of waste from nuclear weapons production would be buried there.

---------------------------

Deseret News
August 04, 2006

Nuclear-waste decisions put on hold

Yucca official urges speedy passage of Senate energy bill

By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — Congress and the Energy Department are still not quite sure how to deal with the temporary storage of nuclear waste, and details may be pushed off until after the August recess and possibly after the November mid-term election.

Any decision on interim storage could affect Private Fuel Storage's plan to store nuclear power plant waste on Goshute Indian land in Tooele County, and long-term plans to store waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain could potentially bring hundreds of shipments of nuclear waste through Utah.

At a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing Thursday, the Energy Department's top Yucca Mountain project official, Edward Sproat, told members that without passage of a pending bill that makes several changes to nuclear-waste policy, there is no way the department can achieve its new goal of opening Yucca by 2017.

"The probability of making that schedule without this legislation is zero, that's how important it is," said Sproat, who has held his position a little more than a month.

But committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the longer it takes Yucca to open, the longer the nuclear waste will stay onsite at commercial reactors all over the country because the department can ship only so much waste to Nevada at a time.

"May I repeat, for those who don't think we need to address temporary storage: If everything goes perfectly, it will take over 30 years, longer than I have been in the Senate, to eliminate the existing backlog of spent fuel," Domenici said. "In light of that, it only makes sense to look for additional ways for the government to meet its obligations."

The Senate has yet to act on the pending energy and water spending bill that contains $10 million to start a federal temporary storage program until Yucca opens. The Senate bill specifically disqualifies Utah from getting a federal site because Private Fuel Storage already has a license to store waste in Skull Valley. But the bill does not prohibit companies from using PFS instead of a government waste facility.

Utah and its congressional delegation have been fighting the PFS plan for years.

The House passed its version of the energy and water spending bill, which contained $30 million for the temporary storage of nuclear waste, saying the government could consider private sites as well as federal facilities to store it.

Once the Senate passes its bill, certain House members and senators will work together to iron out differences between the two.

Congress is about to go on its August recess, leaving legislative work behind for a month to head back to home districts to meet with constituents — or most likely to work on campaigns.

This leaves the spending bills and other nuclear-waste legislation in limbo until the lawmakers come back to allow them to advance. Any bill left at the end of this session would need to be resubmitted at the beginning of the new Congress that starts in January.

Domenici told reporters after the hearing that he may introduce another, simpler Yucca bill he would hope to get through Congress while tackling the temporary storage issue in the spending bill only.

Sproat said temporary storage is something that needs to be discussed because "there is not one solution here that fits all."

"There is no one answer," Sproat said, adding that there are legal, political and financial matters affecting any decision to open or locate a temporary nuclear-waste storage site.

He is not quite convinced that the country needs interim storage but said the department would follow what Congress says.

Sproat also told the panel that working on temporary storage sites, if the responsibility fell to his office, could take management responsibility and time away from working on Yucca.

At this time, the Energy Department itself is not asking for temporary storage policy or anything to be built but Yucca Mountain.

PFS has told the Energy Department it is open to the idea of working with the government by using federal money to ship and store nuclear waste in Utah, but the department has yet to respond to the request. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has consistently said that PFS is not part of the department's waste-manage- ment plan.

--E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

---------------------------

Victorville Daily Press
August 04, 2006

Victorville explores nuclear energy
City hires out-of-state law firm to look at options

By Tatiana Prophet
Staff Writer

VICTORVILLE — The city has retained a Washington, D.C., law firm to help Victorville push further into the energy business, with the idea of eventually building an oil refinery and even, one day, a nuclear power plant.

In late July, Richard E. Powers Jr., who specializes in energy law, made a visit to Victorville to discuss options. The city voted Tuesday to retain Powers, a partner in Venable LLP, for one year at $5,000 a month to lobby and act as a liaison with private sector entities and government bodies. Venable plans to bill the city more for specific projects.

The city stepped up its energy pursuits after President George W. Bush called for the private sector to work on alternatives to Middle Eastern oil, said Councilman Terry Caldwell, and that pursuit does not rule out nuclear energy.

The city is joining a revival of interest in nuclear technology, with the emergence of "passive safety technology" and prototype designs by Westinghouse and General Electric for smaller, and some say lessexpensive, power plants. But the technology is experimental.

For Caldwell, a nuclear plant is a long way away.

"It probably won't happen in my lifetime," he said. "But you know the longest walk always starts with the first step."

Caldwell said Victorville wants to be in the vanguard of the energy movement.

"We're out there, we're not just paving streets and building parks and all those things that are important, we're looking at ways to make Victorville not just the Key City to the High Desert but a dominant player in regional and world issues," he said. "And we have hired a world-class firm to help us in this arena."

If a refinery were built in Victorville, it would be the first in the nation in more than three decades. One reason California gas prices are higher than the rest of the nation is that the state's smog standards are too high for out-of-state refineries to handle. Therefore supply is squeezed by a limited number of refineries in the state.

"We need more modern refineries that can meet the emission constraints," Caldwell said.

A nuclear power plant in California would have to leap many hurdles, namely a law passed in the early 1980s that prohibits any new nuclear facility from being built until the federal government comes up with a safe way to dispose of nuclear waste, said Claudia Chandler, assistant executive director of the California Energy Commission.

As it is, California consumers are paying a surcharge on their bills for storage of spent fuel that is waiting to be disposed of at Yucca Mountain; a plan that has stalled in a tangle of lawsuits.

"If they opened up Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste that's being stored right now in the nuclear facilities throughout the nation would fill Yucca Mountain," Chandler said.

At hearings Thursday in Washington, experts said the earliest the federal government might have a repository is 2017, said Barbara Byron, nuclear policy adviser at the energy commission.

"They were saying it was an optimistic schedule," she said.

--Tatiana Prophet may be reached at 951-6222 or at tprophet@vvdailypress.com.

---------------------------

Decatur Daily
August 04, 2006

TVA says stored waste not a threat

Athens nuclear restart on schedule

From Staff, AP reports

Tennessee Valley Authority officials dismissed fears from environmentalists over whether used nuclear fuel stored at Browns Ferry and other nuclear plants poses a hazard to the Tennessee River.

Browns Ferry, with more than 1,400 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste stored in an elevated pool inside the plant, is among the nation's leaders in onsite spent nuclear fuel.

"This waste is being piled up on the river banks, and the river is the drinking water source for thousands of people," said Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "Couple that with the known terrorist threats, and it's very discomforting."

The material is placed in an elevated pool until it cools enough for the government to transport it to a permanent disposal facility, but it's unclear when that will happen. The new storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was delayed again last week until at least 2017.

Another 37 metric tons of waste are being stored outside the plant along the Tennessee River.

TVA officials are not pleased with the delay at Yucca Mountain, but they say the stored waste is not a public threat.

"The storage in dry casks is a proven, safe technology," TVA spokesman John Moulton said. "(The Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has licensed the storage facilities, so there are regulatory checks there."

Waste also is being stored at other plants. Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., has a full storage pool and outside storage. Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City will need dry-cask storage in about 12 years.

The three plants combined store more than 2,500 metric tons of waste and radioactive fuel assemblies because there is nowhere else to keep it.

"We sued (the U.S. Department of Energy), as did many other utilities, because they didn't start picking up the spent fuel," Moulton said.

TVA's lawsuit was filed in 2001, and a federal court awarded TVA $34.9 million to help pay for onsite storage through 2005. TVA has paid about $758 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund for the building of a permanent storage site.

Nationwide, about 55,000 metric tons of nuclear waste are being stored, and it increases by about 2,000 metric tons a year, Nuclear Regulatory Agency officials said.

During a public hearing Thursday at Calhoun Community College, NRC officials expressed an interest in the restart timetable of Browns Ferry's Unit 1 reactor, questioning whether the schedule allowed adequate gaps for NRC inspections at the plant.

Craig Beasley, spokesman for Browns Ferry, said TVA began the process for bringing its third reactor online in May 2002, and TVA officials said the restart is 90 percent complete.

"It will have a $1.8 billion price tag," Beasley said. "And will provide 1,280 megawatts of electricity, which would power 650,000 homes."

Beasley said bringing Unit 1 online wouldn't necessarily translate to rate changes for customers, but would provide financial flexibility and stability for the utility.

The added base load could allow TVA to purchase less power from other sources, Beasley said.

---------------------------

The Tennessean
August 04, 2006

Concerns raised over increasing amount of spent nuclear fuel

TVA officials believe storage method is safe

Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA — Environmentalists are worried about increased spent nuclear fuel stored at Tennessee Valley Authority power plants, calling the waste "a recipe for disaster."

TVA officials, however, say the storage method is safe.

Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala., with more than 1,400 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste stored in an elevated pool inside the plant, is among the nation's leaders in onsite spent nuclear fuel.

An additional 37 metric tons of waste are being stored outside the plant along the Tennessee River.

TVA officials are not pleased with the delay at Yucca Mountain, but they say the stored waste is not a public threat.

Waste also is being stored at other plants. Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy-Daisy has a full storage pool and outside storage. Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City will need dry-cask storage in about 12 years.

The three plants combined store more than 2,500 metric tons of waste and radioactive fuel assemblies because there is nowhere else to keep it.

"We sued (the U.S. Department of Energy), as did many other utilities, because they didn't start picking up the spent fuel," Moulton said.

Nationwide, there is about 55,000 metric tons of nuclear waste being stored, and it increases by about 2,000 metric tons a year, Nuclear Regulatory Agency officials said.

---------------------------

Atlanta Journal Constitution
August 04, 2006

Utilities: Nuclear waste sits at plants

Southern Co. executive tells panel that customers have paid billions and the feds should take custody.

By Jeff Nesmith
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

nuclear waste from power plants — a job electrical customers in Georgia and elsewhere have paid billions of dollars to get done, a Southern Co. official told a Senate committee Thursday.

J. Barnie Beasley Jr., president of Southern Nuclear Operating Co., said the federal government is legally obligated to move the waste from power plants and store it on federal facilities. The government "must" take responsibility for the waste, even though it will be more than a decade before a planned waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada can open, he said.

Beasley said electricity users across America have paid surcharges totaling $27 billion to dispose of the waste. Alabama and Georgia electric power customers have paid $897 million, he said.

"In order to fully recognize the benefits that nuclear power offers, a solution must be found to the problem of disposal of used nuclear fuel," Beasley told members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Southern Nuclear Operating Co., a unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co., operates the Hatch and Vogtle nuclear power plants in Georgia and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant in Alabama.

Since nuclear power plants do not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the industry has recently started promoting the technology as a solution to the global warming problem.

More than 55,000 tons of highly radioactive used fuel assemblies are being stored in steel-lined pools or dry casks at 103 operating nuclear plants and several decommissioned plants. Critics say they are inviting targets for terrorists, and the industry wants to get rid of them.

But testifying as a representative of the nuclear power industry, Beasley complained that a 24-year-old federal effort to deal with the nuclear fuel rods has been a "failure."

The Yucca Mountain project, in which up to 77,000 tons of used fuel rods would be entombed inside a Nevada mountain for at least 100,000 years, was to have opened in 1998.

The project has been dogged by ongoing scientific uncertainties about safety, environmental concerns and even the discovery that some of the safety data had been forged.

Nevada officials have fought furiously to keep Yucca Mountain, located in the government's Nevada Test Site less than 100 miles from Las Vegas, from becoming the final repository for used fuel from other states.

An Energy Department official testified before the committee that it will be at least 2017 before the government can get the facility licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and into operation.

And even that will require legislation that pre-empts state laws and "streamlines" environmental regulations, said Edward Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

In addition, the department wants the limit of 77,000 tons removed so that the repository might eventually take more than 115,000 tons of used fuel, and it wants Congress to order the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assume that waste disposal is not a problem when it considers licenses for future power plants.

A bill to do those things was introduced by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the energy committee, who also introduced an amendment to the Energy Department's budget for next year, directing it to select one or more interim sites for the fuel while the Yucca Mountain license is being considered.

Beasley said that when Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982, the federal government took on an obligation to dispose of the used fuel. The law imposes a surcharge on users of electricity from nuclear power to finance disposal.

"The industry's top priority is for the federal government to meet its statutory and contractual obligation to move used fuel away from operating and decommissioned reactor sites," he said.

He called a bill to implement the latest changes sought by the Energy Department "a good start" to deal with used fuel.

However, Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Geoffrey Fettus said the bill was another example of what he said was a history of rigged regulations and "dramatically weakened" safety and environmental standards involved in developing the Yucca Mountain repository.

The bill, he said, "is just another symptom of what has been going wrong with the program for nearly two decades."

"If we are ever to have a robust repository program that both follows the original intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and gains the trust of the American people, then the federal government in both its executive and legislative incarnations must cease efforts to weaken meaningful and protective health and environmental standards," Fettus said.

---------------------------

Rutland Herald
August 04, 2006

Nuclear waste bill vexes politicians

By Louis Porter
Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER — A bill making its way through the Congress would, regional officials fear, move the problems of dealing with the storage of spent nuclear fuel from the federal government onto the states.

Gov. James Douglas and other members of the Coalition of Northeastern Governors have written to key lawmakers voicing their objection to the plan, which has passed the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee and is expected to come before the full Senate in September at the earliest.

"Congress appears to be on the verge of telling states it's their own problem," Douglas said Thursday. "That is a breach of the deal we have had for some time."

Ratepayers and citizens in Vermont and elsewhere have been paying into the system on the assumption that the long-term storage of nuclear waste would be overseen by the federal government at a central location at Yucca Mountain, Nev., the governors said.

The proposed change, if approved, could result in spent fuel being stored at local or regional storage facilities in as many as 31 states, according to the Northeast governors.

Those 31 states, including Vermont, already have 50,000 tons of nuclear waste awaiting permanent storage. The site at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, was supposed to be completed several years ago. The new date for the facility to open is expected to be 2017 at the earliest.

The bill which includes the provision also contains funding for a variety of water and energy projects, and it passed the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, a member of that committee, opposes the provision dealing with nuclear waste storage, but the annual budget bill contains many other essential projects including some which benefit Vermont, said David Carle, a spokesman for Leahy.

"Senator Leahy believes the best solution is to remove nuclear waste from Vermont and other locations. The national repository in Nevada is a better solution than opening the door to many new temporary storage sites," Carle said.

However, the best chance to remove the provision from the bill will be later in the process, he added.

The bill already has passed the U.S. House, but the section dealing with nuclear waste storage was not included then. That means that a conference committee between the two sides likely will be convened to work out the differences if it passes the Senate.

U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., an opponent of nuclear power, voted for the water and energy budget bill in the House, before the nuclear waste section was added. That provision likely will meet opposition in the House, including from Sanders, according to his office.

That section of the bill "undermines the federal commitment by diverting these much-needed funds away from the intended purpose of creating a safe and adequately designed permanent nuclear waste repository and directs them toward a hastily created network of federal consolidated storage facilities," the governors warned in their letter.

Douglas reiterated that point at his weekly news conference Thursday. "That is not the deal we had going into this," he said. "That's not right."

Two Vermonters who are each hoping to join the U.S. House after this fall's election, Democrat Peter Welch and Republican Martha Rainville, both object to the idea as well.

Welch "is opposed to this initiative and feels that the federal government is once again abdicating its responsibility and failing to keep its commitments," said his campaign manager, Caroline Dwyer.

Welch was Vermont's Senate president pro tem when the Legislature worked out an agreement with Entergy Nuclear, the company that owns Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, to store nuclear waste in "dry cask" storage canisters in addition to the wet "fuel pool" at the Vermont site until it can be put in long-term federal storage at Yucca Mountain or elsewhere.

Rainville said in a statement released Thursday that the federal government should live up to its commitment to deal with the long-term storage of waste from nuclear plants.

"The changes proposed in the Senate bill may jeopardize our citizens' health, safety and the environment, because local and state authorities do not have the resources the federal government can bring to bear," she said.

Rainville said recently that nuclear power should remain part of the country's energy plan, and the possibility of building new nuclear plants should be considered, according to news reports.

Contact Louis Porter at louis.porter@rutlandherald.com.

---------------------------

Senator Harry Reid
August 03, 2006

Reid Testifies at Yucca Hearing

Washington, DC— U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee today about the flawed Yucca Mountain proposal.

Reid´s statement addressed the problems with the Administration´s bill, safety and security issues associated with the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, and Department of Energy´s handling of the project.

“The Administration´s proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump would change the rules, break the law and prevent states from protecting their cities and people,’ said Reid. “I will continue fighting to make sure the Yucca Mountain project never becomes a reality.’

The full text of his remarks as prepared for delivery is below.

###

Statement OF Senator Harry Reid

Hearing on S. 2589, The Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act of 2006

Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Thursday, August 3, 2006

Submitted for the Record

I want to thank the Chair, the Ranking member, and other members of the Committee for the opportunity present testimony on this issue, which is very important to me, my home State of Nevada, and the rest of the country.

Everyone knows that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is a dying beast. And it should die – it is a scientifically unsound project that would needlessly threaten the public health and safety of Americans everywhere.

Even the administration knows this is a flawed, dangerous project. We can see this in the bill. It tells you everything that the administration knows is wrong with Yucca. They have sent us this legislation to change the rules, break the law and prevent states from protecting their citizens.

If Yucca were scientifically sound – if it genuinely was a safe place to store nuclear waste – the administration would not need to gut the laws that regulate hazardous waste handling and transportation, clean air, water rights, public land laws, and environmental policy. If Yucca were scientifically sound, the administration would not need to preempt states´ rights.

If Yucca were scientifically sound – if it was genuinely safe – we would not have this bill and we would not be here today.

Let´s be honest, the administration is trying to prevent the states from protecting themselves and their citizens.

It is important to remember that this proposal does not just affect or preempt Nevada, but your states as well. And not just in the area of transportation. For instance, the administration also wants to preempt the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for any Department of Energy facility where waste is transported or stored in Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed casks, such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico.

If Yucca were scientifically sound and safe, DOE would not need to remove control of the project from the agencies with expertise – the Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and even the Department of Defense.

Do my colleagues on the committee know that this bill subordinates the authority of the Department of Defense to that of the Department of Energy? No longer does DOD get to determine, when, where and how our flights are conducted at Nellis Air Force Base. The administration has determined that DOE will make those decisions for flights over the Yucca Mountain area.

We cannot sacrifice our nation´s national security for this short-sighted proposal.

What may be even worse is that Congress is being asked to approve the gutting of all these laws and authorities for a project without any details, with no assurance of its safety, no assurance of its viability, and no assurance of its long-term integrity.

In fact, the administration has not even done the impact analysis of this proposal as required by the National Environmental Protection Act. We´ve been trying to get that analysis and clarification on what the administration is or is not doing, but have been given the runaround.

Maybe that´s partly because DOE does not even have a final design for the facility. That is right – DOE has announced that it is completely redesigning the surface facilities, transportation methods and storage requirements. What are the details? We do not have them.

The truth is – although DOE has never said so – if the Department truly intends to increase the amount of waste that can be stored in the mountain, DOE will have to redesign the facility itself.

They are just saying trust us – do not ask any questions, just trust us.

Trust DOE, the department that has had more than 20 years of quality assurance and control problems on this program, whose contractors have the same problems, both of which ignore them and let them continue? Trust DOE, the agency that does not care that data on water infiltration was falsified?

Trust DOE? I don´t think so.

Let me take a moment and address the USGS incident. DOE likes to make a lot of noise about the fact that the Department of Justice did not bring criminal charges against the employees who falsified the data. But let´s be clear: avoiding criminal indictment is NOT an exoneration.

To meet the high burden of a criminal case, prosecutors would have had to prove that the employees made false statements with deliberate knowledge that the statements were false and that the statements had a material effect on the project.

Of course the employees knew that the statements were false – we know that from their own emails, which have been released. However, prosecutors couldn´t prove that the statements had a material effect on the section of a site that had been selected years before.

So these employees narrowly averted federal felony charges. That does not mean the data is accurate. False data is still false data.

Worst of all, DOE has no intention of redoing the data. The threat of criminal prosecution may have passed, but the threat to public health remains.

It is not surprising.

Ward Sproat, who oversees the Yucca Mountain project, admitted in testimony before the House last month that DOE does not have the expertise to design and construct Yucca Mountain. DOE must rely on the expertise of its contractor – Bechtel.

Bechtel – to whom DOE has given bonuses for substandard and incomplete work. Bechtel – the contractor that was under a stop work order because it ignored problems. Bechtel – the same company that ignored problems with the Big Dig, an action that has led to continuing safety problems and, tragically, the death of a motorist from the falling tunnel.

It concerns me that it is Bechtel´s expertise upon which DOE is relying. But it is a metaphor for this entire project.

I have grave reservations about nuclear power primarily because of the problems it generates in terms of spent nuclear fuel storage and transportation, the security and siting of nuclear power plants, and nonproliferation. I would like see these problems solved. I would like for nuclear power to be the panacea that some of my esteemed colleagues see it as.

But nuclear power never will solve any problems unless we address and resolve these problems. That will never happen until we actually look for and find a scientific solution, a real solution, not a political solution, to these issues. I think that we can. I have faith in American ingenuity. America has the best minds in the world. I believe that if we truly focused on solving the real problems of spent nuclear fuel, we could.

Let´s stop wasting time and money researching and redesigning Yucca Mountain. After more than 20 years we know that it will not work. Let´s start really trying to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

What are we to do with the waste in the interim? We leave it on-site in dry cask storage, where it is safely and securely stored now and where the nuclear industry estimates it will continue to be safely stored for decades.

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, dry cask storage is here to stay. And according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it´s safe for one to two hundred years. And, on-site storage saves money. DOE´s last estimate for Yucca Mountain, a low ball estimate, was $56 billion. Nevada estimates $100 billion. Dry cask storage is estimated to be, at the low end, $4.5 billion, up to $10.5 billion, tops.

As NEI has shown us, with or without Yucca, on-site storage will be widespread. Let´s embrace this option while we search for other alternatives.

We should stop wasting our time and money on Yucca Mountain and on an administration proposal that Mr. Sproat himself said it does not even need right now. We have too much to do.

I challenge all my colleagues to sit down with me, as many on both sides of the aisle have already done, and begin discussing a scientifically sound solution to our nuclear waste problems. Let´s take the focus away from this dead project, and find real solutions to secure our energy future.

---------------------------

Senator John Ensign
August 03, 2006

Ensign Testifies Against Proposed Yucca Bill

Washington, D.C. – Senator John Ensign testified today before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act which pushes for nuclear waste to be deposited at the Yucca Mountain repository.

“This bill doesn´t enhance the management and disposal of nuclear waste – it simply expedites it,’ stated Ensign. “The bill tries to legislate around the scientific and safety flaws of Yucca Mountain because supporters of the project know that it will never be opened if current laws and regulations remain in place.’

The proposed bill removes all Department of Transportation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Surface Transportation Board and state authority over the transportation of nuclear waste.

“Congress has heard repeatedly from experts who acknowledge that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository will never be built because of the numerous and insurmountable scientific, safety and technical problems with the site,’ Ensign remarked. “The bill claims to protect the health and safety of the public. Instead it erodes it. It undercuts safeguards for both the transportation and storage of nuclear waste, leaving the public more vulnerable than ever.’

The full text of his remarks can be read below.

Statement of Senator John Ensign

Hearing on S. 2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act

Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Thursday, August 3, 2006

Submitted for the Record

I want to thank the Chair, the Ranking, and other members of the Committee for the opportunity to present testimony on S.2589, the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.

I find the stated purpose of the bill to be outrageous – considering its content. The stated purpose of this bill is to enhance the management and disposal of nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste, to ensure protection of public health and safety, and to ensure the territorial integrity and security of the repository at Yucca Mountain. This bill fails on all three fronts.

First, this bill doesn´t enhance the management and disposal of nuclear waste – it simply expedites it. The bill tries to legislate around the scientific and safety flaws of Yucca Mountain because supporters of the project know that it will never be opened if current laws and regulations remain in place. Congress has heard repeatedly from experts who acknowledge that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository will never be built because of the numerous and insurmountable scientific, safety, and technical problems with the site. In addition, nearly three decades of poor management and oversight have demonstrated that the vast body of scientific and technical work done by the Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors, is incomplete or moot due to constantly changing repository designs and plans which do not meet scientific standards.

This legislation does nothing to correct those problems; it merely attempts to circumvent them. In fact, the bill changes the funding mechanism to remove Congressional control and eliminates much needed oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent on this project. It also scales back NRC licensing requirements and eliminates regulations with the idea of getting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain as fast as possible, regardless of the potential consequences. With all the flaws apparent in the project to date, I believe it is disingenuous to claim that management and disposal will be enhanced by cutting corners and taking a “make it work’ approach to the nations´ most hazardous waste.

Second, this bill doesn´t ensure protection of public health and safety – it erodes it. It undercuts safeguards for both the transportation and storage of nuclear waste, leaving the public more vulnerable than ever. It removes all Department of Transportation (DOT), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Surface Transportation Board, and state authority over nuclear waste transport so that DOE has sole control over a nuclear transportation scheme of unprecedented magnitude. Shipments of waste would be exempt from present and future DOT safe-routing regulations, from DOT safety regulations, and from NRC safeguards regulations.

Furthermore, the bill would exempt material that is transported or stored in NRC-licensed containers or located at Yucca Mountain from federal, state, and local environmental requirements under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). This would eliminate the requirement that hazardous non-nuclear contaminants mixed with the nuclear waste be identified and treated according to RCRA. Clearly this evasion of RCRA could serve as a precedent that would impact future transuranic waste shipments to the WIPP facility, as well as DOE environmental clean-up and legacy management sites across our nation.

In February of this year, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its report on the dangers associated with transporting nuclear waste and advocated that states and local governments have a central role in any successful waste transportation program. This legislation directly contradicts that recommendation. It abolishes state, local, and tribal government transportation authority and circumvents involvement from other federal agencies, such as NRC, DOT and the Department of Homeland Security, which is currently called for under exiting law. According to DOE, 45 states, 700 counties, and 50 Native American tribes will be affected by the transport of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Common sense would dictate that giving away all transportation authority to DOE, rather than the agencies and communities directly affected, does not protect the almost 11 million people within a half mile of the transportation route.

Third, this bill does not ensure the territorial integrity and security of Yucca Mountain. Instead, it jeopardizes national security by withdrawing land currently controlled by the Air Force and the Nevada Test Site. One of the premier test and training sites in the country, Nellis Air Force Base has a varied mission portfolio that is met only by the size and diversity of its ranges and capabilities. Similarly, the Nevada Test Site is the only location that offers safe, secure, and remote testing for defense systems and high-hazard operations. Not only does this legislation call for a land withdrawal from these two sites, it also hands DOE the rights to the airspace, giving a non-defense agency the right to dictate what missions and operations can be conducted. This is not a zero-sum game. Withdrawing land to ensure the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain meets NRC licensing guidelines would erode the integrity of Nellis and the Test Site. It is not prudent to risk our national security by limiting the ability of these unique assets for a project like Yucca Mountain, which remains riddled with problems and questions and is doomed for failure.

We need to find another solution to our nuclear waste problem and this legislation is not it. Instead, we need to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to require the title to all spent nuclear fuel, stored in dry casks, to be passed to the DOE upon on-site transfer from storage pools to casks. Senator Reid and I introduced legislation to allow the DOE to assume liability of the waste onsite before it is transferred to Yucca Mountain. Conveying the title means that the DOE will have full responsibility for the possession, stewardship, maintenance, and monitoring of all spent nuclear fuel. The DOE would also be made responsible for various maintenance and oversight that would be associated with implementation.

The fact remains that if Yucca Mountain was a workable, safe, and scientifically sound plan, it would not require legislation to move it forward. This bill only makes Yucca seem workable on paper by rolling back the many laws and regulations designed to protect the public health and safety of all Americans.

---------------------------

State of Nevada
August 03, 2006

STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. LOUX EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NEVADA AGENCY FOR NUCLEAR PROJECTS OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

August 3, 2006

I am Robert Loux, Executive Director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. The Agency was established in 1985 by the Nevada Legislature to carry out the State=s oversight duties under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

We have reviewed the provisions of the bill S. 2589 entitled ANuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act.@ It is a most extraordinary piece of proposed legislation, even when viewed in the highly politicized and conflict-laden context of the past nineteen years of this nation=s high-level nuclear waste disposal program. During that time we have witnessed the unraveling of the scientific screening and characterization of candidate repository sites, as set out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, to be replaced with the unabashed, politically driven naming of Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, as the only potential repository site to be studied.

We have seen Congress prohibit the study of crystalline rock sites for a potential repository in order to avoid the brewing political turmoil over siting a second repository in any of the populous states of the northern mid-west and the eastern seaboard, where a large number of the nation=s nuclear power reactors are located.

The 1992 Energy Policy Act was Congress= rescue vehicle for the Yucca Mountain repository site when it was discovered that Yucca Mountain could not meet the EPA=s general safety standard for repositories. EPA=s subsequent standard, aimed at protecting the viability of the Yucca Mountain site, was thrown out by the court, and its proposed replacement, if adopted, will likely meet the same fate.

DOE=s site recommendation guidelines and NRC=s licensing rule were adjusted to assure the site would not be disqualified for specific technical safety deficiencies.

And, in 2002, the Secretary of Energy recommended, the President approved, and Congress designated the Yucca Mountain site for development of a repository despite the fact that the Department of Energy was unprepared to submit an acceptable license application to NRC. Just last month, Congress was told that a license application is planned to be submitted in 2008, six years later than the Nuclear Waste Policy Act=s required 90 days after site designation by Congress.

Now you have before you a bill that attempts, like a cowcatcher on a locomotive, to anticipate and sweep aside every potential health and safety obstacle that could upset the relentless drive to begin receiving highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in 2017 - eleven years from now. (Ironically, in 1987, when Congress singled out Yucca Mountain, in an attempt to anticipate and fix the burgeoning waste program problems, the planned opening date also was then eleven years in the future - in 1998.) The bill is so dismissive of American democratic values that it is not worthy of this Committee=s or the Congress= consideration.

Removal of potential health and safety obstacles to expedite licensing and operation of a Yucca Mountain repository does nothing to advance the primary safety finding of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act: Ahigh-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel have become major subjects of public concern, and appropriate precautions must be taken to ensure that such waste and spent fuel do not adversely affect the public health and safety and the environment for this or future generations.@ (Sec. 111(a)(7)). Each of the historical actions noted above has resulted in incremental reductions of safety (and increased risk) in the national nuclear waste program. This bill before you today is a continuation of that trend to the extent that it weakens or eliminates regulatory processes and controls, both for the repository and in the nuclear waste transportation arena.

RCRA Exemption

Exempting waste transportation, storage, and disposal from the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and relying, instead, on regulations adopted under the Atomic Energy Act is an unprecedented compromise of well-understood, long-held and accepted protection of the public from the risks of hazardous materials in the environment. This is a step backward, away from the accepted policy. The Department of Energy=s activities associated with hazardous materials are currently subject to external environmental regulatory oversight, more comprehensive in scope than that afforded under the Atomic Energy Act. This bill=s provision would allow the unprecedented release of hundreds of millions of pounds of hazardous chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, and nickel into the currently potable groundwater supply without any regulatory review. The amount of hazardous metals released would vastly increase if the repository's nuclear waste capacity limit was lifted, as proposed by this bill.

Transportation Preemptions

The Secretary of Energy should not be permitted to exempt waste transportation to the repository from external regulation. Also, the Secretary should not be given the ability to take the initiative in preempting State, local, and Indian tribal transportation requirements Airrespective of whether the transportation otherwise is or would be subject to regulation under the Hazardous Materials Transportation Authorization Act of 1994.@ These provisions severely compromise these entities= ability to be informed and knowledgeable of sources of risk passing through their jurisdictions and take measures required of public officials to protect public safety. They constitute an unnecessary and undesirable trading of public safety for an unspecified increase in convenience for the Department of Energy. They also ignore a recent National Academy of Sciences study that found, in part, that nuclear waste transportation can be acceptably safe if all existing regulatory requirements are rigorously enforced.

NRC Licensing and EIS

The bill mandates both substantive and procedural measures for the NRC license application and review process that curtail the existing rights of parties to review a complete application and take part in an adjudicatory hearing of the entirety of the proposed project. Permission to limit the information in the application for construction authorization to Asurface facilities necessary for initial operation of the repository,@ coupled with the elimination of formal proceedings for license amendments following the construction authorization, greatly inhibits the ability of parties to participate in a comprehensive safety review of the facility.

Furthermore, any Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) written to accompany a construction authorization decision will be insufficient in its required description of the project and evaluation of potential impacts if the complete planned surface facility and its operations are not available for analysis. The surface facility design concept is currently undergoing a major revision because of operational safety concerns that could not be mitigated. This provision allowing the complete surface facility design and operation to avoid full formal safety review during initial licensing proceedings invites unknown future safety and operational issues to arise, putting the public and workers at increased risk.

State Delegated Authorities

Nevada exercises lawfully-delegated authority to regulate emissions affecting air quality. This bill would usurp that authority for any activity or facility associated with the Yucca Mountain project, which according to provisions of the bill, could include construction and operation of a 319 mile-long new rail line to Yucca Mountain. Effective air quality management relies on familiarity with local conditions, and the public benefit of this valuable experience, especially related to construction in essentially pristine areas, would be lost under this bill.

State Groundwater Authority

The bill usurps the State=s traditional authority to administer its waters by commandeering the State to grant extraordinary rights to the Department of Energy. The State's constitutional authority and implementing laws, under which the State Engineer makes water appropriation decisions, are ignored when the bill declares that the Department=s use of any amount of water it decides is necessary for the Yucca Mountain project is beneficial to interstate commerce, and not detrimental to the public interest. The commandeering of the State Engineer=s authority would extend to water needed for the proposed rail line which, in some places, passes through basins where the safe yield of the groundwater is already fully appropriated. The Department, under this bill, would have no obligation to protect the water resources of the State

Land Withdrawal, Land Use and Air Space Issues

The proposed withdrawal of 147,000 acres (approximately 230 square miles) of land for the Yucca Mountain project, which could include land for the 319 mile-long rail access to the site, is premature. Without a construction authorization by NRC, which the Department does not expect until at least 2011, there is no need or basis for the withdrawal. In order to receive a repository license, the Department must demonstrate ownership and control of the repository site, but this is not necessary prior to submitting a license application. DOE could simply agree to a condition that, if construction authorization is granted, a land withdrawal will be accomplished.

The proposed withdrawal unnecessarily limits public entry and use of current Public Land for at least the next five years, a period during which the Department has not demonstrated a need for the Public Land portion of the withdrawal.

The bill also gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to close airspace over the repository withdrawal area, despite any objection from the Secretary of the Air Force, whose aircraft currently use the airspace for thousands of training missions each year, with the frequency of use expected to increase in future years. The Air Force Secretary already has objected to any Yucca Mountain associated activity that would compromise the national defense mission of the Air Force.

And, the withdrawal would give the Department authority to exchange land within the withdrawal for federal land outside the withdrawal. With the various limitations for use of withdrawal lands, if exchanges were made to acquire land for the rail access line, this could greatly disrupt, without recourse, public use and access to lands currently used for grazing, mining and mineral exploration, and recreation.

Pre-License Construction

The bill=s provisions for infrastructure improvement and construction prior to NRC construction authorization are also premature and imprudent. The Department recently has released for review and comment, an Environmental Assessment outlining the six new buildings and many miles of new road and electrical power line construction and replacement, it plans over a two year period prior to construction authorization. In the EA, the Department claims the approximately $100 million worth of new and replacement construction is not intended to support repository construction and operation, yet the bill gives a green light for just that purpose, even though, according to the Department=s recently announced plans, the anticipated construction authorization is just five years away. Without a construction authorization from the NRC, the proposed new and replacement construction is not needed, not authorized by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and certainly not prudent, despite the thin claims in the EA that it will improve safety for workers, visitors, and regulators, and support continuing scientific work and testing.

Program Funding

Opening the annual receipts of the Nuclear Waste Fund as discretionary offsetting collections to fund the program is not an entirely new concept. Well over a decade ago, then Energy Secretary Hazel O=Leary made the plea to Congress, AUntie my hands,@ when seeking full access to the Nuclear Waste Fund. Since that time, we all have come to see that full access to the waste fund would not have been the solution to the problems that the program has inflicted on itself, and are beyond the scope of the anticipated and potential problems that this bill seeks to sweep aside.

Quality Assurance

Throughout its history, the inability of the program to implement a satisfactory quality assurance program has been chronicled by the General Accounting Office (now Government Accountability Office) and the NRC, yet to date the problems persist. But, according to Department managers, as always, they are on the verge of being solved. Quality assurance failures were at the core of the now infamous e-mail incident whose fallout has caused millions of dollars of expense and immeasurable loss of credibility that still is ongoing. Open access to the Nuclear Waste Fund would not have provided an obvious solution to the persistent quality assurance failures. Instead, the Department sees it as a Aculture@ issue and is now (after more than 20 years) claiming to be implementing measures to make individual managers more accountable for their work and the work they supervise. In the licensing proceeding, the Department must demonstrate that it has management systems in place and functioning that would support an NRC finding that the Department would be a qualified and competent licensee. The Department itself does not seem to believe that it yet passes this test, but is confident that it will by the time of license application.

Concluding Remarks

The many provisions of this bill that are aimed at eliminating administrative and regulatory requirements the Department perceives as obstacles to meeting its latest schedule for opening a Yucca Mountain repository have the appearance of being a litany of excuses for continued poor performance. Virtually all of the issues raised in the bill involve actions that are outside of the control of the Department. Yet the real obstacles that the Department must deal with are of it own making. A most telling example was the Department=s inability to comply with the NRC=s requirement to provide an adequate and acceptable documentary record to support its then-anticipated 2004 license application. The Department=s recently announced fantasy schedule calls for its next effort to provide such a record to take place on December 21, 2007, providing just a few days more than the required six months prior to submitting a repository license application, which is scheduled by the Department for June 30, 2008.

None of the provisions of S. 2589 are needed by the Department of Energy to carry out the primary task at hand - prepare a complete, high quality license application and submit it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review and hearing. This bill gathers the powers of numerous federal and state agencies, local authorities, and Indian tribes into the hands of the Department of Energy, probably the most distrusted federal agency in the human health and environmental arena. It boldly does this for the sole purpose of attempting to force a faltering Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository into becoming a reality.

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
August 03, 2006

Senate committee chairman questions timeline for nuclear waste dump

By Erica Werner
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate committee chairman says the Bush administration's new timeline for opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada in 2017 ignores the possibility of lawsuits and delays.

"Experience has shown that the schedule for Yucca is a slippery thing," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told the project's new director Thursday.

"My concern is that the new timetable does not include any margin for any further project delays by the (Energy Department), its contractors, or legal action by the state of Nevada all of which would cause DOE to miss these new deadlines," Domenici said at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Such delays and lawsuits have become commonplace. The dump originally was supposed to open in 1998. Last year, the department abandoned a 2010 deadline.

Edward F. "Ward" Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said he understood Domenici's concerns about the latest timeline.

"I'm not saying that was the most probable schedule. I said it was the best achievable schedule," Sproat said.

Even if the 2017 scenario were to come true, Domenici said, there already would be enough nuclear waste at commercial reactors and defense sites to fill the Yucca Mountain site.

Currently, there are more than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste piled up at commercial nuclear power plants in 31 states.

The administration wants to lift the 77,000-ton storage cap on the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and allow as much waste as the mountain can safely hold - 132,000 tons or more.

If legislation making that change doesn't pass, "we will need a second repository in this country," Sproat said.

Domenici said the solution also includes a new administration initiative to recycle nuclear waste, and an interim storage plan he's proposed.

Even if Yucca Mountain opens in 2017 it will take until 2040 to move the nuclear waste already accumulated into the dump, Domenici said.

"For those who don't think we need to address temporary storage: if everything goes perfectly, it will take over 30 years - longer than I have been in the Senate - to eliminate the existing backlog of spent fuel," said Domenici, elected in 1972.

Sproat has expressed doubts about the interim storage plan, saying it could take nearly as long to set it up as it would to begin moving waste to Yucca Mountain.

Also part of the discussion Thursday was whether the land-use restrictions being contemplated as part of the Yucca project would affect operations at nearby Nellis Air Force Base. Nevada witnesses including Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, and Bob Loux, head of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, testified that the project would require land withdrawal from Nellis and interfere with Defense Department authority over operations there.

"It jeopardizes national security by withdrawing land currently controlled by the Air Force and the Nevada Test Site," Ensign said.

Loux referenced a 2003 Air Force letter raising concerns about airspace restrictions in the area.

But Sproat testified that the land being withdrawn would constitute less than 1 percent of the total area of Nellis, and that the no-fly zone would be only 4 miles in radius. "From our discussions with the Air Force they don't have a problem," he said.

An Air Force spokeswoman reached after-hours Thursday had no immediate comment.

---------------------------

Pahrump Valley Times
August 02, 2006

Inquiring minds want to know: Was Yucca report ever written?

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's senators say White House environmental advisers were supposed to have completed a new Yucca Mountain analysis by now, and they are demanding to know where it is.

Federal law requires the White House Council of Environmental Quality to prepare impact studies to accompany proposed bills, the senators said.

So Sen.'s Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., asked council Chairman James Connaughton in a letter Wednesday for the report on a Yucca Mountain bill that the Bush administration sent to Capitol Hill on April 5.

"The CEQ must provide this analysis to Congress," Ensign said.

The demand was viewed as a fresh shot across the bow of the Bush administration as the Nevada senators load new ammunition against the proposed nuclear waste repository.

Aides said the senators suspect a report has not been written. Reid and Ensign would plan to bring that up at a Yucca Mountain hearing set for next Thursday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"CEQ's analysis is necessary for members of Congress and the public to understand the impact and parameters of the proposal," Reid and Ensign said in the letter.

A CEQ spokeswoman on Thursday declined to discuss the status of any Yucca Mountain report or to confirm whether one has been written. The spokeswoman would not say if the White House believes one was required or not.

"We will be responding to the senators' letter and we will share the response after the senators see it," spokeswoman Kristy Hellmer said.

The Senate committee is scheduled to examine a Bush administration bill that aims to clear away some of the obstacles that Energy Department officials say are holding up the repository project.

The measure would reclassify the Yucca Mountain fund so DOE can gain access to funds needed for construction.

It would withdraw the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas from public land status, and would lift a 70,000-metric-ton cap on how much nuclear waste can be placed inside the mountain.

The bill also would make it easier for DOE to claim water rights for the repository despite Nevada opposition. It also would expand the energy secretary's authority on nuclear waste transportation.

---------------------------

Nevada Observer
August 1, 2006

"A Record Of Fraud": Berkley -- "No Basis In Reality": Ensign

DOE Says, "We Will Bring Nuclear Garbage To Nevada Beginning March 2017"

by Johnny Gunn

With no license in hand, with congressional investigations of wrongdoing continuing, Department of Energy (DOE) officials went before congress and declared they will be accepting nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain beginning March 31, 2017. Braggadocio? Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D) calls it fraud. Berkley says the entire Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository "continues to be plagued by lingering scientific uncertainties and a record of fraud and mismanagement that will doom its chances of ever opening."

The time plan as outlined by Edward F. Sproat, III, Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, U.S. Department of Energy before congress indicates the Yucca repository will be accepting waste on March 31, 2017. Sproat said the design for its license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be completed by the end of November 2007. That license application has been in the works for more than 20 years and is no closer to being completed today than it was in 1986.

Waffling on how to get the high-level nuclear waste from production plants to Yucca has also been continuing for 20 years or more. According to Sproat, the final rail alignment environmental impact statement will be issued at the end of June 2008. It was just one month ago that DOE said they may not be building that rail line around the Nuclear Testing Facility in southern Nevada anyway. Sproat went on to say the rail line construction will begin on October 5, 2009 and will be completed and ready for use by the end of June 2014. Sproat appears to be on a tight rein from the White House and has changed his approach to congress considerably from just a short time ago when he questioned the viability of the Yucca project.

Nevada Senator John Ensign (R) said "Once again DOE has set forth a timeline with no basis in science or reality." Ensign has worked with Nevada Congressman Jon Porter (R) in his investigation of allegedly fraudulent e-mails within DOE's Quality Assurance program. Ensign said recently, "DOE's scientific defense of the Yucca Mountain project, which has ranged from incomplete to fraudulent, has resulted in a consensus that alternatives to Yucca Mountain need to be considered."

Hearings are continuing in congress led by Nevada Senator Harry Reid (D) and New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici (R). Reid believes that Yucca will never be licensed, and that the waste should remain on the ground at the nuclear power plants. He is pushing for legislation to that effect and believes the waste can eventually be reconstituted into usable fuel.

The concept of Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear waste began in the 1980s during the cold war. Throughout the rest of the world nuclear power generation facilities handled their own waste, but in this country it was believed that the government could do it better, safer, and for less cost. More than 20 years later, the costs have gone through the roof, the safety question is part of the fraudulent e-mails that are being investigated, and it's become more than obvious the federal government can not do a better job of sequestering this highly dangerous volume of killer waste.

"Strong scientific evidence has clearly demonstrated that Yucca Mountain will not protect Nevadans from deadly radioactive waste," says Berkley. A part of the program that DOE and the administration wants passed includes bringing high lever nuclear waste onto our shores from foreign nuclear energy projects. Yucca Mountain is finite in its capacity, and the U.S. nuclear energy facilities will overwhelm that capacity before the facility is even licensed.

Berkley said, "I am amazed that at a time when we face an $8 trillion debt, there is apparently an endless supply of money to be spent on ... the plan to bury Nevada in nuclear waste." EPA standards for the casks that hold the waste and how long the waste must be protected, that is the environment being protected from the waste have not been finalized or even debated outside the beltway. Those standards must be a part of DOE's license procedure and that hasn't been accomplished. EPA standards currently in discussion have not been accepted by the scientific community.

Sproat said the EPA standards will be included in the Supplemental EIS that he says will be issued at the end of May 2008. The EPA is under federal court orders to create these environmental standards, and at this time has failed to do so. Further court involvement is almost guaranteed on most of the issues that Sproat spoke so favorably of.

On environmental issues, Senators Reid and Ensign are prodding the Council on Environment Quality (CEQ) to release the long-overdue and legally mandated environmental impact analysis of the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act, the proposal for dumping nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. The act was presented to Congress in April of this year and is now four months late.

"We are talking about the most dangerous substance known to man," said a joint press release from Reid and Ensign. "The people of Nevada need to know, and have a right to know, about the dangers associated with storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in our state, including the potential environmental impact," said Reid. "It would be irresponsible to rush to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain and transport so much dangerous material across the country without the public being informed of the public health and environmental hazards."

A hearing is scheduled as we go to press, and "The CEQ must provide this analysis to Congress," said Ensign. "The people of Nevada have a legal right to know the environmental impact" of this storage. Ensign and Reid both called the waste the most hazardous material known to man. The implication from the demand is that DOE, the CEQ, and others in the federal government treat the waste as a household product that can simply be flushed down the toilet.

Along with environmental problems, the State of Nevada has concerns over DOE's new approach to the casks that are to hold the high level nuclear waste. In a letter from Bob Loux, Executive Director, Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he has serious concerns on the proposed single canister system for transport, aging, and disposal of the waste. This is a referral to a suggestion from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board to the DOE over the same concerns.

Loux says, "DOE doesn't really have a plan for making this new concept work." In his letter, Loux says, "The apparent spent fuel handling simplifications for DOE come at the price of substantially increased complexity and work at the reactor sites, both for the owners and for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission." Loux concludes, "On closer examination, even the touted simplifications for DOE may well disappear. We think it is essential that Congress understand this state of affairs."

What most of this article points out in big red letters is simply this: DOE is no more ready to be licensed and operating than it was more than 20 years ago. The area is unstable according to a research paper written recently by scientists Chih-Hsiang Ho, Eugene I. Smith, and Deborah L. Keenan. Titled "Hazard area and probability of volcanic eruption of the proposed high-level Radioactive Waste Repository at Yucca," the three say "Abstract models that calculate the probability that a new volcano or a dike from a nearby eruption will intersect the footprint of the proposed high level nuclear waster repository are generalized based on a conceptual model developed for the space transportation industry. The proposed hazard area defined such that every new eruption that occurs there will disrupt the repository, plays a fundamental role in developing probability models."

For an enlightened view of Yucca Mountain from a pure science perspective, read "Uncertainty Underground," edited by Allison M. Macfarlane and Rodney C. Ewing and published by MIT Press in Cambridge, Mass. In the introduction the editors point out, "the substantial uncertainty involved in predicting the future behavior of nuclear waste in a geologic repository." The book is a compilation of learned essays by some of the most knowledgeable scientists in the nuclear field.

---------------------------

Knoxville News Sentinel
August 03, 2006

Spent nuclear fuel "recipe for disaster"

By Associated Press

CHATTANOOGA — Environmentalists are worried about increased spent nuclear fuel stored at Tennessee Valley Authority power plants, calling the waste "a recipe for disaster."

TVA officials, however, say the storage method is safe.

Another 37 metric tons of waste are being stored outside the plant along the Tennessee River.

TVA officials are not pleased with the delay at Yucca Mountain, but they say the stored waste is not a public threat.

Waste also is being stored at other plants. Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy-Daisy has a full storage pool and outisde storage. Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City will need dry-cask storage in about 12 years.

The three plants combined store more than 2,500 metric tons of waste and radioactive fuel assemblies because there is nowhere else to keep it.

"We sued (the U.S. Department of Energy), as did many other utilities, because they didn't start picking up the spent fuel," Moulton said.

Nationwide, there is about 55,000 metric tons of nuclear waste being stored, and it increases by about 2,000 metric tons a year, Nuclear Regulatory Agency officials said.

--Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press, http://www.timesfreepress.com

---------------------------

PR Newswire
August 03, 2006

Southern Company Represents Nuclear Industry Before Senate Committee

ATLANTA, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Speaking before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources today in Washington, D.C., Barnie Beasley, President and CEO of Southern Nuclear Operating Company, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company, expressed strong support of the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act, S. 2589, on behalf of the nuclear energy industry.

"In order to fully realize the benefits that nuclear power offers, a solution for the problem of disposal of used nuclear fuel must be found," Beasley told committee members.

The fundamental problem with the failure of the federal government to remove used fuel from U.S. plant sites has not been the lack of authorizing legislation, Beasley said, but the failure to fund and implement current legislation.

"While new legislation to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is important, it is even more critical that the federal government commit itself to the implementation of existing law," Beasley said.

On July 19, the nuclear energy industry was encouraged by Department of Energy's announcement that it would submit a license application by June 30, 2008, and the "Best-Achievable" construction schedule that could have the repository begin receipt of used fuel in March 2017. While DOE's announcement of a schedule for licensing the repository is a significant development, the schedule will be difficult to achieve without congressional action.

"The nation's policymakers must be confident that policies are in place to ensure the safe and secure storage and disposal of used nuclear fuel. Managing the nation's used fuel is a firmly established federal obligation and, as such, is a matter of broad national policy," Beasley said.

In 2001, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed four decades of international scientific consensus that geologic disposal is the best method for managing used nuclear fuel. In 2002, Congress approved a geologic disposal site at Yucca Mountain. In the Energy Policy Act, Congress included provisions that encourage the construction of new nuclear power plants, illustrating confidence in the nation's ability to manage used reactor fuel in the future, and DOE has safely operated a geologic disposal site for radioactive waste near Carlsbad, N.M.

Beasley told committee members that issues regarding the timing and certainty of performance by DOE of its used fuel management obligations should be resolved in proceedings on the repository, or in Congress.

"Litigation of such issues in individual plant licensing proceedings is neither efficient nor appropriate. NRC has long recognized that individual plant licensing proceedings should not be burdened with debates over DOE's development of the repository. Congress should codify 'waste confidence' as called for in S. 2589, so that the NRC need not address this broad public policy matter in routine licensing proceedings," he said.

Beasley also pointed out the billions of dollars that have been invested in the development of Yucca Mountain. "To date, consumers of nuclear power have committed more than $27 billion in fees and accrued interest into the fund, and continue to pay at a rate of $750 million each year. However, only some $9 billion has been spent on the project, leaving a balance in excess of $18 billion," Beasley said.

"We believe it is important for the Congress to act to maintain the integrity of the Nuclear Waste Fund. We support amending S. 2589 to clearly define that only activities that directly contribute to meeting the federal government's obligation under the NWPA can be supported from the Nuclear Waste Fund. This includes expenditures related to transportation, storage, and disposal of used fuel and high-level waste," he said.

The industry's top priority is for the federal government to meet its statutory and contractual obligation to move used fuel away from operating and decommissioned reactor sites. The government already is eight years in arrears in meeting this obligation, Beasley testified, and it will be at least another decade before the repository is completed. That failure is the subject of more than 60 lawsuits, which potentially expose the federal government to billions of dollars of judgments and settlements.

Further delays in federal receipt and movement of used nuclear fuel and defense waste products will only add to utility damage claims, and, according to DOE, will increase taxpayer liability for defense waste site life-cycle costs and Yucca Mountain fixed costs.

In conclusion, Beasley told the Senate committee, "We must never lose sight of the federal government's responsibility for civilian used nuclear fuel disposal, as stated by Congress in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The industry fully supports the fundamental need for a repository so used nuclear fuel and the byproducts of the nation's nuclear weapons program are safely and securely managed in a specially designed, underground facility. World-class science has demonstrated that Yucca Mountain is an eminently suitable site for such a facility, and enactment of S. 2589 is the critical pre-requisite to implementing our national policy for used fuel management."

With 4.3 million customers and more than 40,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier energy company serving the Southeast, one of America's fastest-growing regions. A leading U.S. producer of electricity, Southern Company owns electric utilities in four states and a growing competitive generation company, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are significantly below the national average. Southern Company has received the highest ranking in customer satisfaction among U.S. electric service providers for seven consecutive years by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Visit our Web site at http://www.southerncompany.com.

---------------------------

Spartanburg Herald Journal
August 03, 2006

Letter: Nuclear waste

I am writing regarding your July 28 editorial addressing Congress trying to kill funding for the mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) plant. Thank you for bringing this most recent development to our attention.

I have been arguing the point for many years now that if we keep accepting radioactive waste from other states, we won't have any

children left to educate. And education was the original arrangement since money received would be earmarked for education -- big ha-ha!

So many programs have been started in the name of better education,

and our educational system is still in terrible shape, with the programs being less than desirable for South Carolina.

Is the Barnwell site no longer a cash cow? Must our responsible representatives now look for more money to replace dwindling revenues, or are they just greedy? I think our representatives actually couldn't care less about the environment, terrorism, jobs, etc., when dollar signs from Washington are dancing before their eyes, should the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada default.

Washington has done nothing it promised regarding this matter so far, so why would we think the money would be forthcoming? Washington is receiving less resistance from our representatives than those in Nevada, who are fighting for their constituents.

Please do not let this rest. Let's hold our representatives accountable. South Carolina is not large enough to handle everyone's waste forever, especially in a facility that was not designed for long-term storage. The ecological impact alone should be reason enough to fight Washington.

Debbie Gruner
Spartanburg

---------------------------

Brattleboro Reformer
August 03, 2006

Governors challenge nuke waste proposal

By Andy Rosen
Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- Gov. James Douglas and other leaders are taking issue with a proposed change in national energy policy that could leave the state, instead of the federal government, responsible for long term storage of nuclear waste from Vermont Yankee.

On Wednesday, the Coalition of Northeastern Governors sent a letter to the U.S. Senate expressing opposition to a proposed federal law that would change the government's approach to spent nuclear fuel storage.

Right now, the U.S. Department of Energy is ultimately responsible for the waste produced at the nation's 103 nuclear power plants. For years, the plan has been to transport it and permanently store it at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The proposed change in the law would require commercial spent fuel to be stored at local or regional storage facilities in up to 31 states across the nation.

The letter from the Coalition of Northeastern Governors expresses opposition to the change.

In the letter, the governors concede that waste storage is a complex policy issue, but they say that the proposed federal legislation isn't the solution.

"This provision sets a hasty timetable that does not allow adequate consideration of the many safety, security, environmental, infrastructure and transportation impacts associated with keeping these waste in current sites," the letter reads.

Douglas heads energy policy for the coalition of governors. Jason Gibbs, spokesman for the governor, said the legislation, if it becomes law, would shift ultimate responsibility for waste storage away from the federal government.

"It would implement storage requirements without any discussion with state leaders and local communities," he said. "Gov. Douglas thinks it's the wrong way to go."

Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the plant does not oppose the legislation.

"The interim storage has always been an option," he said. "It leaves open the possibility of recycling the fuel through reprocessing."

Williams said that wouldn't be an option if spent fuel were immediately buried.

---------------------------

Senator Harry Reid
July 31, 2006

REID, ENSIGN CONTINUE TO PRESS FOR RELEASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN

Analysis of Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act Consequences Overdue

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a joint letter sent Monday, U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign of Nevada again strongly urged the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and Department of Energy (DOE) to release the long-overdue and legally mandated environmental impact analysis of the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act, the proposal for dumping nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

"Nevadans and the rest of the country have the right to know about the environmental and public safety risks associated with the Yucca Mountain Project.," said Reid. "That´s why it´s so important that our request for the release of this important study be met —otherwise, Nevadans are left to wonder what the federal government is trying to hide.’

“We are going to continue to press for the environmental impact statement so that we will know the true cost of Yucca Mountain when it comes to the health and safety of Nevadans," Ensign said.

Reid and Ensign sent a follow up letter to CEQ and DOE after CEQ responded to the original letter by referring the Nevada Senators to the DOE, the lead agency on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. CEQ did not provide the analysis to the Senators.

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the completion and public release of an environmental analysis of such legislation so the full environmental consequences of the bill can be examined before Congress acts. The Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act was first presented to Congress on April 5, 2006, nearly four months ago. The full text of the letter is below.

###

July 31, 2006

James L. Connaughton
Chairman
Council on Environmental Quality
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C 20500

Samuel W. Bodman
Secretary
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20585

Dear Chairman Connaughton and Secretary Bodman:

Thank you for responding to our letter requesting a copy of the administration´s environmental impact analysis of the Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act, S. 2589, that Senators Domenici and Inhofe introduced by request of the President. We also appreciate the Council on Environmental Quality informing us that the Department of Energy is the lead agency on this analysis. However, our request was for a copy of the analysis, which we still have not received.

To reiterate, the National Environmental Policy Act requires the administration to prepare an environmental impact analysis and include it with any recommendation to Congress on legislative proposals.[1] We request that the environmental impact analysis required under NEPA and clarification as to whether that analysis has been competed, be provided by noon on Tuesday, August 1, 2006.

We look forward to your response. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this request, please contact Sandra Schubert at 224.3542 or Pam Thiessen at 224.6244.

Sincerely,
HARRY REID United States Senator
JOHN ENSIGN United States Senator

Cc: United States Senator Pete Domenici, Chairman, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senator Jeff Bingaman, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senator James Inhofe, Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works United States Senator James Jeffords, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

---------------------------

The Peacock Report
August 02, 2006

DoE May Expand Industry Involvement In Nuke-Dump Licensing Process

Private-sector nuclear energy providers will have a chance to bid on three projects – rather than just one, as previously intended – to help the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DoE) obtain Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval to build a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

TPR reported in late June that DoE was reaching out to industry to review, and possibly revise, a draft waste-disposal license application, the approval of which requires NRC blessing prior to allowing DoE´s prime contractor – Bechtel SAIC, Co. – to develop and open an underground storage facility. The license review and consultation, which initially was one segment of three distinct DoE audits of the repository project, has itself been tentatively divided into three contracting actions -- the overall goal of which involves the hiring a team of experts to review "the entire license application and repository design" and ensure the draft documents satisfy applicable NRC regulations.

DoE´s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) late last week issued a revised "sources sought" notice to industry, explaining that it is "considering" obtaining these "license defense" services via three separate contracts whose potential value remains undisclosed. Nuclear transportation planning and implementation activities are among the areas that these contracts would support. Second is the provision of "expert support" to OCRWM in "completing, submitting and potentially defending a license application." The third segment involves assistance with professional and technical management and administrative affairs during the licensing process.

Potential contractors must have "significant experience and expertise" in NRC licensing, nuclear facility design and operations, tunnel design and operations, and working in an NRC regulated environment, the notice says..

Contractors specifically must be capable of assisting DOE by:

(1) Ensuring the sufficiency and readiness of licensing documents for filing with NRC.

(2) Carrying out technical reviews of design documents and operating plans for surface nuclear facilities;

(3) Technical reviews of tunneling plans and underground facility designs;

(4) Technical review of operating plans for subsurface facilities;

(5) Technical reviews of science and performance assessments;

(6) Preparing an organization to be an NRC licensee'

(7) Explaining highly technical subject matter to a non-technical audience.

Work will be performed at DoE headquarters in Washington, D.C. as well as in Las Vegas.

---------------------------

NEI Nuclear Notes
August 01, 2006

Paper Urges Sen. Stabenow to Back Yucca Mountain Project

Continued high temperatures in the Midwest have the Grand Rapids Press thinking about electricity, nuclear energy and the lack of progress on the Yucca Mountain Project:

Now the Senate is moving to set up regional waste centers to last 25 years or until Yucca Mountain can be opened. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved such a plan this week. The idea likely is a false hope and an expensive one at that. Further political blockades and drawn-out legal battles are inevitable. Congress instead should focus on legislation needed to push the Yucca Mountain project forward.

Michigan needs that movement. The state's existing power plants aren't generating enough electricity to meet the state's peak requirements. Not for 17 years has a major power plant been built in the state. A Michigan Public Service Commission report this year recommended that Michigan have at least one new electric power plant on line by 2011. The plant almost certainly will be coal-fired unless nuclear power can be freed up as an option.

That should happen. Nuclear power is a clean, safe and reliable energy source. It also would serve to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Michigan's federal lawmakers should be pushing nuclear power. This time, Sen. Stabenow should be among them.

Something tells me the folks in Michigan won't be the last to notice. Reminder: The next hearing on the Yucca Mountain Project is scheduled for this Thursday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Comments: There's a little more local politics involved here than is apparent in the story. Stabenow ran as a moderate Democrat with a campaign position of supporting Yucca Mountain as a local Michigan issue. After election, she immediately reversed field to vote with the Democratic position of blocking Yucca Mountain. It remains a sore point with many voters.

---------------------------

Press of Atlantic City
August 02, 2006

Science and VX Disposal

Healthy skepticism

Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site where the federal government plans to store nuclear waste, has been called the most studied real estate in the world. The government's scientists are convinced that spent fuel from the nation's nuclear-power plants can be stored safely beneath 1,000 feet of solid rock at Yucca.

Nonetheless, many in Nevada remain steadfastly opposed to the plan.

Southern New Jersey is in the midst of a similar battle.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the most respected public-health agency in the world — said it found no health or environmental problems in the Army's plan to dispose of VX nerve-agent waste in the Delaware River.

Nonetheless, many in New Jersey remain opposed to the plan.

Science doesn't carry the weight it used to. Whether it's nuclear waste in Nevada or nerve-agent waste in New Jersey, the public remains unconvinced by the experts.

The skepticism is healthy.

We would all like to live in a world of hard, immutable, completely trustworthy scientific fact. Certainly, we need no longer quibble about whether the Earth is round or whether it revolves around the sun. But today's scientific issues, particularly those like the disposal of dangerous manmade waste, often turn on points far more speculative than, say, the law of gravity.

Science at this level is akin to a guess — a best guess, a well-informed guess, a studied guess, an expert guess. But still a guess.

So the CDC report does not end and should not end the controversy over hydrolysate, a caustic byproduct resulting from the neutralization of the VX nerve agent.

The Army wants to truck 4 million gallons of hydrolysate, which contains trace amounts of VX, from a facility in Indiana to New Jersey for further treatment at a DuPont Co. plant in Salem County — and ultimate disposal into the sensitive Delaware River and Delaware Bay ecosystem.

One drop of VX can kill a man. The Army and the CDC say the level of VX in the hydrolysate will be so low that it would not harm humans. But there is evidence that even very low levels could harm wildlife. A May 2004 Army document showed that at levels from 20 to 25 parts per billion, VX still killed fish.

At issue is the fragile Delaware River and Delaware Bay ecosystem. Migrating birds, horseshoe crabs, striped bass and other fish, and a long-struggling oyster population are all under pressure in this already stressed ecosystem.

And as this ecosytem goes, so go the many tourism-related and marine businesses that depend on it.

The Army and DuPont, which would reportedly receive $13.5 million a year during the two- to three-year treatment process, may very well be able to dispose of this material in the Delaware River with no ill effect. But no one can say that for sure.

The state of New Jersey has yet to weigh in on the plan. Certainly, the CDC study should be reviewed carefully. But perhaps most importantly, if a decision is ultimately made to go ahead, DuPont should be required to set aside a significant sum of money to mitigate any future problems caused by the disposal of VX waste into the Delaware River.

---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------