Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, May 23, 2008
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Reuters
May 22, 2008
U.S. government to file for license for nuclear waste dump
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department will file an application in early June with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to operate a long-delayed nuclear waste dump in Nevada, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Thursday.
The Yucca Mountain storage site, located about 90 miles from Las Vegas, is still at least a decade away from being finished due to bureaucratic delays and scientific foul-ups. But the government still needs a license to operate the fuel dump whenever it is ready. The storage facility was supposed to open in 1998.
Bodman told reporters on Capitol Hill the department will send its license application to the NRC early next month.
Yucca Mountain is designed to store underground millions of pounds of radioactive waste from 104 U.S. nuclear power reactors along with tons of leftovers from the country's nuclear weapons program.
--Reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by Marguerita Choy
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CNNMoney
May 22, 2008
Progress Energy Says Gets Nearly $83 Million In Spent-Fuel Ruling
Dow Jones Newswires
Progress Energy Inc. (PGN) on Wednesday said a federal claims court awarded the company $82.8 million for costs incurred as a result of the government's failure to accept spent nuclear fuel from the utility.
The sum covers the costs incurred to activate fuel-storage facilities at plants in North and South Carolina and costs to transfer used nuclear fuel between plants for storage.
The company originally filed the complaint against the Department of Energy, asserting $91 million in costs incurred between Jan. 31, 1998, and Dec. 31, 2005, the time period established by the court.
Progress Energy said the lawsuit stemmed from the DOE failure to open a federal repository for used nuclear fuel by Jan. 31, 1998, as stipulated under federal law.
--Freddy Sebastian; 201-938-5400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
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News & Observer
May 22, 2008
Court awards Progress Energy $83 million
From staff reports
A federal court awarded Progress Energy $82.8 million to cover the company’s costs related to storing spent nuclear fuel at its plants in the Carolinas.
The Raleigh company, along with other utilities, sued the Department of Energy to cover its costs after the government failed to open a repository for used nuclear fuel by 1998, as required by law.
Lawmakers and regulators have sparred for years about whether to create a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Progress Energy sued to recover $91 million in costs incurred between Jan. 31, 1998 and Dec. 31, 2005. It will likely seek to recover more recent costs in future suits.
The company stores spent fuel at its Shearon Harris nuclear plant in southwestern Wake County, including fuel it transports by train from its Brunswick nuclear plant, south of Wilmington.
Progress Energy announced Monday’s ruling from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims this afternoon.
There are about 60 similar cases brought by utilities nationwide. Some have been settled.
Progress Energy said it expects the Department of Justice will appeal Monday’s ruling.
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Chicago Tribune
May 22, 2008
Just a few more cool days before Sunday's 80s
By Tom Skilling
Chicago's beaches open Friday but cool temperatures riding northeast winds will hardly have area residents dashing for chilly lake waters. Lake Michigan is 1 degree cooler than a year ago and at its chilliest levels in four years. But huge changes are under way that have air masses across North America on the move. Powerful winds—clocked as high 105 m.p.h. at the 4,900-foot level of Yucca Mountain and 63 m.p.h. at White Sands, N.M.—sent record triple-digit heat in the Southwest packing Wednesday, whipping visibility-reducing dust into the air. Visibilities near El Paso dropped to near zero in blowing dust while 50 to 60 m.p.h. gusts at San Simon, Ariz., made it impossible to see much more than 100 feet.
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Medill Reports
May 22, 2008
Nuclear energy moratorium likely to hold fast in Illinois House
by Phil Taylor
State legislators have stalled an amendment to lift Illinois’ 21-year-old state moratorium on new nuclear power plants, raising old concerns over the safe storage of nuclear wastes.
“Some of our members thought we were moving too fast, and I don’t have a problem with that,” said amendment sponsor Rep. JoAnn Osmond (R-Antioch).
State budgetary matters have kept legislators occupied in recent weeks, and it appears unlikely the amendment to lift the ban will come up for a vote before the legislative session closes at the end of May.
Osmond’s amendment to the Public Utilities Act of 1987 passed the Public Utilities Committee by a 10-2 vote on April 2 after a short debate.
The amendment has 35 co-sponsors, but is opposed by House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), according to his press secretary Steve Brown.
“Speaker Madigan wanted to have further discussions about it,” Osmond said. “I’m hoping if we don’t get it done by deadline he’ll extend it to veto session,” meaning next fall.
Environmental groups opposed to nuclear power expansion in Illinois are confident the amendment will not receive a vote this session.
“The bill is being sponsored by a House Republican” in an election year, said Barry Matchett, co-legislative director at the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center. “It’s not clear how much room the speaker will give her to talk about this bill.”
The bill still needs a third reading. Illinois’ constitution requires that a bill be read a third time on the House floor before its sponsor can call for a vote.
If the bill doesn’t come up for a vote this month, Matchett said it is unlikely an amendment of this type will be considered during the fall legislative session, typically devoted to appropriations.
“This is a big policy question, and it doesn’t meet the standard of bills that are considered in the fall,” he said.
Illinois’ last nuclear reactor went online in 1988, the Exelon nuclear power plant at Braidwood, said company spokeswoman Krista Lopykinski. Exelon operates all 11 of the nuclear reactors in Illinois, which provide about 45 percent of the state’s electricity.
Illinois produces more nuclear power than any other state in the country.
Proponents of nuclear argue that it is a clean alternative to conventional fossil-fuel energy sources such as coal, oil and natural gas. Nuclear power plants emit no greenhouse gases and have low operating costs.
But increased demand for nuclear reactor parts has caused a sharp increase in construction costs, which now run anywhere from an estimated $3-9 billion.
“Even with the new nuclear reactors that are being built internationally, the cost overruns are staggering and they’re behind schedule,” said David Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service, the nuclear watchdog group in Chicago.
“They’re experiencing two unanticipated things, which are critical: a shortage of material of the type you need and a shortage of the kind of work force you need to do the work,” he said.
New nuclear power plant designs on the market all include passive safety mechanisms that activate independently of human operators. Examples of passive safety controls include cooling water tanks above the reactor core that automatically empty in case of overheating. In these reactors, temperature and gravity triggers the release of water rather than reliance on plant operators.
However, if the Illinois amendment isn’t passed, new nuclear reactors cannot be built without a “demonstrable technology” to safely store the radioactive wastes.
So far, no such technology exists, and a federal repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain will not be available until at least 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Still, utilities are expected to build 34 new reactors in the United States as energy demand increases by an expected 30 percent by 2030, said Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the Department of Energy. He made the remarks at a recent nuclear energy conference.
Already, nine operating license applications have been submitted to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval.
Exelon applied for and was issued an early-site permit for Clinton, which would clear the federal regulatory path for construction of a new nuclear reactor in Illinois.
“We don’t have any plans to build new plants in Illinois,” Lopykinski said. She said Exelon obtained the permit to expedite building of a new reactor in case of future need.
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Barre Montpelier Times Argus
May 22, 2008
Letter: Don't be misled by Entergy ad
Entergy's ads about Vermont Yankee being clean, safe and reliable are psychologically abusive to the good people of Vermont and an insult to our intelligence.
Are we supposed to ignore that uranium comes from somewhere? Uranium mining has devastated the traditional food sources and health of the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario. The workplace safety insurance board pays $30,000 to the families of uranium miners who die from workplace-related cancer. We are paying for our "cheap" energy with bodies.
Radioactive slurry is seeping into our largest freshwater supply — the Great Lakes. I also want to know why the carbon footprint of mining and trucking uranium is ignored.
Yucca Mountain is another example of abuse. The United States does not own Yucca Mountain. It belongs to the sovereign Western Shoshone Nation, who never ceded land to the United States. We are there as trespassers and occupiers.
The Serpent River Band and the Western Shoshone Nation have passed resolutions to never again allow uranium mining and to be a nuclear free zone. Even if we could continue plans for Yucca Mountain and continue forcing indigenous cultures to bear the burden of uranium mining, I don't think Vermonters want to base our prosperity on the abuse and victimization of others. Our futures are inextricably linked.
I hope this information is enough to make the woman on her bicycle in Entergy's ads stop smiling. We have the power to decide Vermont Yankee's future. Now is the time in which we can change everything.
Julia Bonafine
Cuttingsville
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Las Vegas SUN
May 21, 2008
Yucca father changes his tune
Ex-senator says site’s designation as temporary might have won support
By Lisa Mascaro
Washington — The lawmaker perhaps most responsible for turning Yucca Mountain into the nation’s proposed nuclear waste dump said Tuesday the politically opposed project should never have been billed as a place to hold waste indefinitely.
Former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston says the waste repository might have won more public support in Nevada had it been designed as a temporary facility rather than the one now being planned to hold waste for up to 1 million years.
Instead, 20 years later, the plan to entomb highly radioactive nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas is hopelessly stalled in a protracted legal battle, as well as in the courtroom of public opinion.
“I think it should have been designed differently,” Johnston told a group of nuclear waste haulers Tuesday in Washington, D.C. “I knew we’d run into the kind of problems that we have — where you can’t absolutely prove with certainty what’s going to happen in 10,000 or 100,000 years.”
“The opportunity to bring lawsuits and spread uncertainty about what happens ... years from now is too great,” he added in an interview. “And that is exactly what has happened.”
Johnston’s comments come just weeks before the Energy Department is expected to deliver its long-awaited application to license the site. The Energy Department will try to convince federal regulators, and the public, that the site can safely hold nuclear waste for the unforeseeable future.
The former Louisiana senator’s renewed interest in a temporary holding facility mirrors increased efforts in the nuclear industry to seek alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s main trade group, has been quietly chatting with small, primarily rural communities to gauge their interest in hosting a temporary waste facility.
Neither Johnston, now a consultant in Washington, D.C., nor representatives from the nuclear industry will admit that Yucca Mountain is dead, as Nevada’s lawmakers often claim.
But they would like to have a backup plan for, say, the next few decades until Yucca Mountain opens.
The latest estimates from the Energy Department are that Yucca could start accepting waste by 2020. The department has spent $9 billion on the site, which was supposed to open in 1998.
Bob Loux, who leads the state’s efforts to fight Yucca Mountain, said the “mind-set of people like Johnston and the industry has all changed. They all realize now it was a huge mistake” to try to force the waste dump on Nevada.
Twenty years ago Johnston, a powerful Democratic committee chairman, led the drive for a permanent waste repository.
But Johnston also knew that trying to convince the public that the mountain could safely hold the waste for almost an eternity would be a tough sell.
Originally, the legislation included plans for what is called “monitored retrievable storage” — what some have called glorified loading docks, where waste could be monitored and retrieved if toxins began polluting the land or water, or if technological advances allowed for it to be recycled, as scientists are trying to do.
But lawmakers from the proposed temporary sites, especially Tennessee, protested, saying temporary would become permanent. No one wanted nuclear waste in his back yard.
Johnston now says that perhaps the time has come to reconsider temporary sites — even at Yucca Mountain.
“Perhaps we ought to go back to MRS,” he told the nuclear waste haulers, using the initials for monitored retrievable storage. “Yucca Mountain is a great place for MRS.”
However, it’s hard to believe Nevada, which has fought becoming a permanent waste site, would support being a temporary one.
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Las Vegas SUN
May 21, 2008
DOE picks 2 firms to design, build nuclear waste canisters
The Associated Press
The federal Energy Department has picked two contractors to design and build canisters for the transport and permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel at a planned national repository in Nevada.
Yucca Mountain project chief Edward F. "Ward" Sproat calls the selection Wednesday of NAC International of Norcross, Ga., and Areva Federal Services LLC of Bethesda, Md., a significant step for federal plans to license and build the repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The five-year contracts with each company can pay up to $7.3 million.
Project planners expect up to 90 percent of the highly radioactive waste now piling up at nuclear plants in 39 states will be shipped to Nevada in the canisters.
Officials say that'll reduce the need for repetitive handling of spent nuclear fuel.
The Energy Department plans next month to submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and operate the Yucca Mountain project.
--On the Net:
Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov
Areva NC Inc., Areva Federal Services LLC: http://www.us.areva-nc.com/
NAC International: http://www.nacintl.com
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Las Vegas SUN
May 21, 2008
Letter to the editor:
Yucca Mountain unknowns will sink project
Ron Bourgoin, Rocky Mount, N.C.
On May 14 Sun reporter Lisa Mascaro wrote (on the Las Vegas Sun Web site’s blog “Politics: The Early Line”) that the Energy Department intends to submit a license application for operation of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain the first week of June.
Anyone who has been following this issue for as long as I have (since 1984) knows there’s not enough information available to submit an adequate application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made up of professional engineers. There are too many unanswered questions about the Yucca Mountain environment.
Nobody knows how Yucca Mountain’s internal soup will change over a long period of time. What sort of hybrid corrosive agent will be created inside the mountain? We don’t know. Not only that, we also don’t know how well the C-22 alloy container will hold up in this hybrid chemical environment.
Relying on the information now available, the NRC will be very uncomfortable with this license application. As a matter of fact, no NRC will ever be confident unless the C-22 alloy is tested in all likely soup compositions at Yucca Mountain. This has not been done, nor is it likely to ever be done, simply because there are too many variables.
My guess is that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman wants to be able to say he delivered on what he promised. He knows the application will never make it, but he’ll be gone and won’t worry about it. And that’ll be the end of Yucca Mountain as a possible high-level nuclear waste site.
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UPI
May 21, 2008
Energy Dept. OKs waste storage contracts
WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy awarded two contracts for storage containers to hold nuclear fuel bound for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
Areva Federal Services in Maryland and NAC International in Georgia received contracts to design, license and demonstrate the Transportation, Aging and Disposal canister system, the primary way for encasing spent radioactive fuel for transportation to and disposal in the facility, the Energy Department said Wednesday.
The two contracts could total up to $13.8 million, the department said. Each was awarded for a term of up to five years.
"We believe that these advanced canisters will provide for the safe, long-term storage of our nation's spent nuclear fuel," said Edward Sproat, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management director. "This is a significant step in the Department's efforts to license and construct the repository at Yucca Mountain."
In 2002, the president and Congress approved Yucca Mountain as the site for the nation's first geologic repository for permanent spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Department's license application for authorization to construct the repository is scheduled to be submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission no later than June 30, 2008.
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Las Vegas Business Press
May 21, 2008
Yucca fight goes on after lawyer's death
Joseph Egan's passing felt as Yucca Mountain hearings loom
By Valerie Miller
The recent loss of Nevada's lead lawyer in the fight against a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain will not derail that effort, his law partner says. Joseph Egan developed a contingency plan as his battle with stomach cancer progressed in the days, weeks and months before his death.
Egan died May 7 at his home in Naples, Fla. Egan's law firm, then Egan & Associates, was retained by state officials in 2001 to stop the Department of Energy's efforts to store 77,000 tons of radioactive waste at the Yucca Mountain site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The law firm, later known as Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch, has been credited with delaying the Department of Energy's plans for years.
Egan, 53, wanted the Yucca Mountain fight to continue after he lost his own fight against gastroesophageal cancer. The lead attorney broached the idea of new roles for other attorneys in the firm, which led to a new delegation of responsibilities in the Yucca Mountain case.
"He brought it up in the first instance," said Charles Fitzpatrick, Egan's longtime law partner and the firm's managing director. "I think it was fair to say it was three months ago. I don't think he thought there was a clock running. He thought he would eventually die of cancer or the side effects (of the treatment)."
Egan continued working until the end of April, when his condition took a rapid turn for the worse, his law partner said. Egan had been diagnosed with cancer in December 2005, but worked mostly full time in 2006 and 2007.
At Egan's behest, Martin Malsch, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's former acting general counsel, was named lead licensing counsel for hearings the commission will conduct on the Yucca Mountain repository construction application. Fitzpatrick was named lead litigation counsel.
"I guess you would say that Mr. Egan had occupied both roles, with the assistance of his lieutenants, Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Malsch," Fitzpatrick said. "Based on Mr. Malsch's long history with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he was the go-to guy. He wrote a lot of the NRC regulations."
The new roles were ironically made public the day of Egan's death, but only by coincidence. They had been released to the press shortly before his passing, sources said.
An announcement on the hiring of additional counsel is forthcoming, the firm's managing director said.
Not only did Egan propose restructuring the firm as his illness progressed, but the nuclear engineer-turned-lawyer even selected Yucca Mountain as his final resting place, according to an obituary Egan wrote himself and posted on the company's Web site.
Egan was to be cremated and his ashes "to be spread across the volcanic terrain there with the eulogy, 'Radwaste buried here only over my dead body,'" the posting on Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch's Web site read. Fitzpatrick said Egan had written his own eulogy unbeknownst to others at the firm. Fitzpatrick later learned of it from Egan's wife, Patty.
Egan's firm will carry on the fight to stop shipments of nuclear waste to Las Vegas' backyard, Fitzpatrick said. The legal battle could delay the project to at least 2020, even if the Department of Energy ultimately prevails, he added.
The law firm expects the legal action over the Yucca Mountain project to take shape in phases. It is now in the "preapplication phase." The next major development will likely come in a few months when the Department of Energy will file its first application for the repository with the regulatory commission. The commission will then accept the application and put it on its docket or send it back if it's deemed incomplete.
If the commission dockets the Department of Energy's application, interested parties, including Nevada and its attorneys, will get a chance to scrutinize the application. But docketing can take up to three years, Fitzpatrick said.
The project will eventually advance to hearings, likely in mid-2010. Typically a single hearing is held, but the repository is so controversial that three hearings will probably take place, the lawyer said.
Originally, Egan was supposed to be the lead trial lawyer at one of those hearings; Fitzpatrick would lead another hearing, and another litigator would handle the third. Malsch was to oversee the hearings process.
"Malsch will represent at one of the panels," Fitzpatrick said of the revamped plans. "He will still be the person the attorneys go to. The type of work he has done in the past, and will do in the future, is tied to nuclear regulatory issues."
The Department of Energy would also have to obtain a second license before even "lifting a shovel of dirt" at the Yucca site. The physical construction at the site would be tediously slow, requiring the movement of thousands of tons of rock, Fitzpatrick added.
The firm will continue the long legal process that Joseph Egan didn't get to finish, Fitzpatrick said.
"I think from the beginning he had hoped and anticipated being there until its conclusion, when he took it on in 2001," Fitzpatrick said. "But (later on) he knew he wasn't going to live to be 60."
--vmiller@lvbusinesspress.com, 387-5286
Egan was to be cremated and his ashes "to be spread across the volcanic terrain there with the eulogy, 'Radwaste buried here only over my dead body,' " the posting on Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch's Web site read.
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Rossmann and Moore
May 21, 2008
In Memoriam: Joe Egan
Roger Moore,
Rossmann and Moore LLP, San Francisco
Joe Egan will be remembered years from now as one of the finest lawyers of his generation, and perhaps its foremost nuclear lawyer. But those facts, while unassailably true, do not begin to capture the man he was. In Joe, the brilliant legal mind always shared space with the first-rate scientist, the master strategist, the elegant and accessible prose stylist, the gifted pianist, the scholarathlete, the suave raconteur who told hilarious stories over smoky single-malt scotch, and the devoted father and husband. And in all his complex facets, Joe remained the Minnesota farm boy with a twinkle in his eye who had an insatiable curiosity to understand what made rockets fly. In an era that has seen the term “renaissance man” cheapened with overuse, Joe was the genuine article. While I knew Joe for less than a decade, I quickly learned that he had enough passion and strength to fill several lifetimes. Along with my law partner Tony Rossmann and colleague (now University of Maine law professor) Dave Owen, I had the pleasure and honor of serving with him on the team of attorneys representing Nevada in its David-versus-Goliath fight against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. And Joe was unquestionably our David, unmatched in skill and unshakable in his conviction that billions of dollars and bureaucratic inertia would never make a fatally bad idea inevitable. Yucca Mountain was conspicuously never built on Joe Egan’s watch, and it will take constant vigilance to ensure that it is never built on ours.
I will always associate Joe with our relationship to future generations and the passing of time. My daughter and son were both born during pivotal stretches of our Yucca Mountain work, and I often ended up writing Joe work-related notes between their 2 and 4 AM diaper changes. Most of these times, I discovered, Joe would cogently respond to my notes within minutes. Given the way he filled his schedule, I suspect that in the 53 years before reaching his heavenly state, Joe managed to experience the cumulative waking hours of a typical 80 year-old. The remarkable thing was not that he did so, but that regardless of the time of day or night, he responded with wit, compassion and insight.
Working with Joe on Yucca Mountain also made me think more critically than before about the imperative of intergenerational responsibility, a subject that has been on my mind as a new father. While rhetorically endorsing that notion, too many agency decision-makers have taken actions better summarized by John Maynard Keynes’ sarcastic observation that “in the long run, we are all dead.” But Joe, through his actions and words, gave voice and hope to future generations that will live through the consequences of our present decisions. His Yucca work highlighted the critical importance of site geology, and made it inescapable to face the radiation exposure that would linger for thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years, after man-made containment systems inevitably failed. In addition to Joe’s leadership on Yucca Mountain, his years of tireless efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation—resulting in the successful return of weapons-grade uranium from dozens of countries— underscored the importance of his legacy to the future.
At a time in which too many have allowed politics to become a crude substitute for science, Joe had a true scientist’s high regard for intellectual honesty and a true statesman’s high regard for responsible stewardship. As an environmental lawyer based in the West, I think of Joe’s focus on intergenerational responsibility when I consider the words that John Muir, in a different setting, wrote about forests more than a century ago: “Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time, and before that, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools—only Uncle Sam can do that.” Joe, who lived through decades of mismanaged federal nuclear policy, knew better than most that hard work is still needed to hold our government’s actions accountable, and good humor is still needed to keep us sane as we try. In the future, when we use our legal and scientific talents to help save ourselves, and our children, from the work of fools, we will know that we are doing Joe’s work.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 20, 2008
RADIATION RULES: EPA chief defends Yucca work
Agency's head says guidelines for health take time to be formulated
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The head of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday defended the agency's work on Yucca Mountain radiation health rules that remain uncompleted after close to three years of review.
"The reason is very simple. This is very complex," EPA administrator Stephen Johnson said. "We are taking our time to make sure we are doing it in an appropriate way."
The Department of Energy is preparing to submit a construction application early next month for a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site even as the EPA has yet to finalize its radiation health standard.
The EPA proposed draft regulations in August 2005 as to how much radiation should be allowed to escape the repository and enter the environment as the waste decays over thousands of years into the future.
At a Senate hearing in March 2006, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation William Wehrum said agency officials hoped to release a final Yucca Mountain regulation by the end of that year, but nothing was forthcoming.
Since then EPA officials have been mum as to when the final rules would be issued.
The silence has given rise to speculation that the regulations are ready but the Bush administration is holding off on making them public to delay the all-but inevitable lawsuits from repository opponents.
Johnson, speaking to reporters at a roundtable organized by the Platts energy trade publications, said there was no strategic reason for taking so long.
"As any major regulation it is important and necessary for us to reflect on it and go through an interagency process," he said. "We are in the midst of reviewing things."
Johnson said he could not say when the Yucca standard would be made final. It appeared to be at the White House for review within the Office of Management and Budget.
The regulation was received by OMB on Dec. 15, 2006, and its status was listed on the agency's Web site as "review extended."
"My expectation is to have a decision certainly by the time I leave office," said Johnson, who is expected to step aside by the time a new president is inaugurated next January.
The EPA's draft regulation proposed to limit radiation exposure near the repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to 15 millirems a year for 10,000 years, then increasing the allowable limit to 350 millirems a year for up to 1 million years. By comparison, a chest X-ray is 10 millirems.
Energy Department officials said their computer calculations show the Yucca repository could meet that standard. Critics including officials in Nevada charge the standard would not protect public health.
The EPA issued an earlier set of radiation rules in June 2001, after a 22-month review process. Those rules were rejected by a federal appeals court in July 2004, prompting EPA to embark on a rewrite.
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Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch
May 19, 2008
For Immediate Release
Contact Charlie Fitzpatrick
(210) 496-5001
Nevada's Yucca Law Firm Hires New Partner
Following the untimely death of its founding attorney, Joseph Egan, veteran nuclear law firm Egan, Fitzpatrick & MaIsch, PLLC announces the arrival of a new contract partner, Jolm Lawrence, to assist the legal team representing the State ofNevada before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (1\TRC) in licensing proceedings for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. "I look forward to carrying on the traditions established by Mr. Egan and continuing the accomplishments his firm has achieved for its clients including the State of Nevada," said Lawrence.
For the past 4-Yz years, Mr. Lawrence was the General Counsel of Louisiana Energy Services, LLC (LES), a New Mexico-based company that received a NRC license in 2006 to construct and operate the National Enrichment Facility (NEF). Like Egan, Lawrence is a veteran nuclear attorney and a former nuclear engineer with on-site nuclear construction and operations experience. At LES, Lawrence was responsible for all legal, corporate compliance, and insurance matters throughout facility licensing and construction, and successfully defended the NEF license before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
The firm's managing partner, Charlie Fitzpatrick, commented that "John is one of the last nuclear attorneys not conflicted out. He's a world-class litigator and a prodigious attorney that has some of the most current NRC legal experience in the U.S. We're thrilled to have him aboard." Among other roles, Mr. Lawrence has committed to establishing a firm office in Las Vegas, as this becomes appropriate, to facilitate its participation in the Yucca licensing proceeding.
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Nevada Appeal
May 19, 2008
Yucca-bound nuke waste should not affect Lyon
Karen Woodmansee
Appeal Staff Writer
Lyon County residents shouldn't have to worry about shipments of nuclear waste someday going through the county on the way to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository, a state official said.
Joseph Strolin, administrator of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the only way Lyon County will be affected is if the rail spur from Hazen south to Yucca Mountain through Mina was used. That's not possible now that the federal government had rejected the Mina route for the waste.
He said the Walker River Paiute Tribe objected to route, although the U.S. Department of Energy, which is charged with shepherding the Yucca Mountain project, studied the route.
After the study, the tribe, which owns the rail line, rejected the route. Now, he said, the DOE is mostly interested in the Caliente corridor.
Another way Lyon County could see shipments taken through its territory is from Interstate 80 by truck. Strolin said that's not very likely. He said the trucks couldn't use Highway 95 or 95A to get waste south because the state has the right to reject transport along those roads.
Strolin spoke to the Lyon County Commission recently in response to an earlier presentation given by representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy about the Yucca Mountain project.
The DOE has for years worked on a plan that would store hazardous nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in a repository 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
Strolin told the commission the state of Nevada remains adamantly opposed to the site. With Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., as Senate Majority Leader, its opening was not likely.
He said the Yucca project has been slowed because of budget cuts, and due to diminishing industry and political support, was not likely to be built.
"The number-one issue we had from Day One was Yucca was a bad site," Strolin said.
He said the geology was very porous, and Yucca was an area of high seismic and volcanic activity, with magma close to the surface.
Strolin also said there are corrosive substances in the water that affect the canisters the waste would be contained in.
"In order to make it work, DOE, instead of finding a stable geologic area and let geology house it, came up with a patch of engineered chambers to hold the canisters," he said. "But the containers, when subjected to water, developed corrosion in a matter of months."
He said state officials have not met with anyone from DOE.
"We have nothing to talk about," he said.
He said DOE will submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June.
"They are committed to do it before this administration leaves office," he said. "We plan to give 500 reasons why it won't meet standards."
• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or call 881-7351.
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Huffington Post
May 19, 2008
Harry Reid's Memoir: A Political Book That Packs a Punch
Al Eisele
A word to the next president, whether you're Republican or Democrat, man or woman, black or white: Make sure you've made every effort to get Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in your corner.
President Bush didn't do that, and he's paying a big price for it, as the flinty Nevada Democrat and former amateur boxer demonstrates in his remarkable new memoir, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington.
Almost any chapter of the slim volume, which inexplicably has no index -- a cardinal sin in a town where people first check the index to see if they're mentioned -- will explain why Reid has emerged as one of the most powerful people in the nation's Capital since becoming majority leader two years ago. And above all, why the next president doesn't want him as an enemy.
For example, here is what Reid, who as head of the Nevada Gaming Commission once carried a gun and started his car by remote control for fear that the Mafia might kill him for trying to clean up Las Vegas gambling casinos, writes about Bush: "Alone among the [four] presidents I have served with, George W. Bush will rank among the worst presidents -- if not the worst -- in the history of our country. He has been bad for America and for the world. And he will leave severe, long-term damage in his wake."
Reid goes on to excoriate Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney, for misleading the country about going to war in Iraq, for eroding America's moral standing by sanctioning torture and spying on its own people, and for devising "a theory of executive power that is so thoroughly unconstitutional and so un-American that it may take years after Bush and Cheney are finally gone to fully expunge its effects from our national affairs."
The book is replete with other harsh judgments of Bush, whom Reid publicly accused of lying to him on two occasions, once when he approved a huge nuclear waste facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain after promising Reid during the 2000 campaign that he opposed it, and again when Reid says Bush misled him by claiming it was then-Majority Leader Bill Frist's idea to invoke the so-called nuclear option by changing the Senate rules to allow a simple majority to invoke a filibuster.
"Once again, the President had lied to me and I told him so," Reid writes. "I still meet with him. He still invites down when he has to. I'm sure he's not happy about what I said, but I'm not happy about him misleading me either."
In one particularly revealing anecdote, Reid recalls a conversation with then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas), who praised the first President Bush as a quality person. But he added, "Watch out for his wife: she's a bitch."
"I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen's crude advice, I've always said that our forty-third President is more his mother than his dad," Reid writes. "I believe that the current President is an ideologue who has done incalculable damage to the government, reputation and moral standing of the United States of America."
There's no question Reid knows how to hold a grudge. Case in point: He tells of delivering the 2005 commencement address at George Washington University Law School, where he won a law degree in 1964 while working the evening shift for three years under a Nevada congressman's patronage as a Capitol policeman. He never forgot that the school had refused him financial aid when he told the dean he was working fulltime, his wife was pregnant with their second child, his car had broken down and they couldn't make ends meet. The dean coldly suggested he wasn't cut out to be a lawyer and should quit.
"It is true that I had been upset for four decades, and in that time could not be stirred to answer an invitation or a piece of fundraising mail from anyone at the university," Reid writes. "The source of my scorn was simple: Success in my life, given my background, was unlikely enough without being kicked by Dean Potts when I was down. How, if he was trying to clear me out like a weed among the orchids, then he picked the wrong guy."
But Reid decided he'd held his grudge long enough and it was time to "apologize to the entire faculty, administration, and all of the law students for my pettiness," which he did, telling his audience, "It's not how I've tried to live my life."
The lesson for Reid was clear, and it tells a great deal about his style of leadership.
"... It actually felt good to bury the hatchet at GWU," he writes. "They were very gracious in receiving me. ... In any case, I had neither the time nor energy to hold on to past resentments. I guess that forty years was enough. In 2005, there were far too many battles to fight, on far too many fronts."
Reid, who labored tirelessly as whip under Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, decided he would be a different kind of leader, who "wanted to empower the ranking members on the various committees, give them more autonomy, and place trust in them. I also wanted to establish a bigger and broader leadership group to better harvest the talent and take advantage of the diversity of the Democratic caucus. ... I resolved to cast a wider leadership net."
Reid's criticism of Daschle is couched in the mildest of terms, unlike his denunciation of political adversaries like Frist, whom he claims was clearly over his head in the job, as well as Republican colleagues like Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), "Who is always with us when we don't need him."
There's much more in this fascinating book, especially about Reid's humble origins in the tiny mining town of Searchlight, Nev., and his early career as a Las Vegas lawyer who battled the gambling industry's Mafia interests. But anyone looking for Reid to declare which Democratic presidential candidate he supports will be disappointed, just as the next president will be sorely disappointed if he or she underestimates Reid.
Reid's hardscrabble life story and his uncompromising attitude toward those whom he believes have abused the power of high office remind me of another President named Harry. He was from a different state. His name was Truman. From Missouri. Which leads me to wonder if the wrong Democrat is running for president this year.
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WorldNetDaily
May 19, 2008
Why I love Harry Reid
Ellen Ratner
This week several journalists and bloggers had breakfast with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid just published a book, "The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington." It is a very honest book and very direct, not the usual political fare from Washington politicians. There are journalists from both the right and left who do not think he is an effective majority leader, but I beg to differ. He is very effective precisely because he flies under the radar as soft spoken but tough.
There are pundits who think that if Sen. Clinton does not win the Democratic nomination she will come back and claim the majority leader position. Sen. Reid is not about to be displaced, and when asked about his tenure he said he has the full support of the senators and added, "keep in mind also that a senator coming back that's running for president is not very unique around here. John Kerry ran, he's back; Chris Dodd ran and he's back; Joe Biden ran, he's back … Clinton has a lot of fine committee assignments. She has plenty to do." Spoken like a very wily leader who is not going anywhere.
When Bill Clinton ran for president, he was tagged as "the man from Hope," which referred to his birthplace, Hope, Ark. Harry Reid is the man from Searchlight, Nev., and it puts the spotlight on what can happen in America. His parents were alcoholic. His father did not finish eighth grade and later committed suicide. He lived with various relatives while growing up, met his wife when in high school and has been married to her for 50 years. He and his wife have 16 grandchildren. If that is not an American success story, I do not know what is.
What makes Harry Reid so successful is that he is not one to step in the spotlight or the searchlight, he can let other senators take the grandstand while he keeps the Democratic majority stepping in the same direction. He calls it as he sees it and lets the chips fall where they may. In his book he plainly says that President Bush lied and lists examples, once about the nuclear waste site in Yucca Mountain and once about the so-called "nuclear option" regarding filibusters in the Senate. Anyone who knows Sen. Reid can just imagine him plainly telling the president that he was lying – not a lot of fan fair, just a sentence or two delivered with precision.
Children of alcoholic parents are often keen observers of behavior. My favorite personality sketch in "The Good Fight" is a scene from the White House cabinet room on the sixth anniversary of 9/11. He quotes the president saying, "Of course al-Qaida needs new recruits because we're killing 'em. We're killing 'em all." Reid's observation is that, "We are spending $12 billion a month and has no end in sight, (and) here's the president of the United States speaking of the situation as if it's some kind of action movie or sporting event."
Reid understands the rhythm of American politics. At the breakfast, he predicted the tactics of the GOP, "The Republicans are trying to conduct this coming election as they have in past elections, going after people for being unpatriotic. For example, Max Cleland who is missing three limbs as the result of being hurt in Vietnam. Tom Daschle, being unpatriotic. So this is the record they are dusting off and going back and playing it again." Will Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats be "swift boated" this election? Not a chance. He is ready for them, and as a former college boxer, Harry Reid knows when and where to throw the punch.
Throwing the punch is one thing, and picking up Senate seats is another. Sen. Reid estimates that the Democrats are going to pick up four to five seats in November. If I were a betting woman, I would bet on Harry Reid. He comes from the state that has had legalized gambling the longest, and I would say he understands the odds and knows how to win.
--Ellen Ratner is the White House correspondent and bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service. She is also Washington bureau chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a news analyst at the Fox News Channel.
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Lynchburg News and Advance
May 19, 2008
President-elect of the American Nuclear Society says nuclear power plants a boon
By Bryan Gentry
The construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States presents some problems the nation’s entrepreneurs could solve.
William Burchill, president-elect of the American Nuclear Society, said in Lynchburg last week that the huge need for a nuclear infrastructure presents an opportunity.
He said the first eight new nuclear plants alone will require 700,000 electrical components, 200,000 feet of pipe, and 20,000 high-quality valves.
Also, some plant designs depend on humongous steel tanks only manufactured in Japan.
For now, at least.
“They will come, for these first units, from overseas,” Burchill said. “This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur here in the United States to get into this business and open up some shops.”
The need to establish infrastructure to provide these components is one of the challenges the nuclear industry must meet if it is to become the major player it wants to be in the United States.
Burchill outlined those challenges and presented his hope for solutions in a speech to the Virginia section of the American Nuclear Society on Thursday in Lynchburg.
Other challenges include maintaining public and political support and finding ways to handle nuclear waste.
A retired professor, Burchill also said the caliber of students heading for the nuclear field bodes well for the industry.
The resurgence of nuclear power plant construction is necessary, Burchill said, because the world needs more power.
“It’s not unusual to find estimates that say by mid-century, world demand for electricity could grow by a factor of two,” Burchill said.
While there are 35 nuclear plants being built outside the U.S., and China is pondering 200 more, the process is going slower in the U.S.
The Energy Information Administration’s outlook for 2030 estimates only 17 new nuclear power plants by that time.
Burchill said that’s not enough. “It’ll be true if we forecast that and stick to our forecast, but I think we could build more.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission currently has more than 30 applications for power plants on its table.
Going forward, the industry must keep public and political support high, Burchill said.
He said the nation holds to an untrue perception that nuclear energy is unpopular.
“While the majority, 65 percent, are in favor of it, they think their neighbors are opposed,” he said.
Burchill said performance at existing nuclear facilities has improved. The number of equipment-forced outages has been cut in half over the past 10 years. Radiation exposure to plant employees has dropped as well.
Burchill said continuing to improve the track record is important for building support.
The question of what to do with nuclear waste poses another challenge.
Burchill said recycling nuclear fuel is the best option, but the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in Nevada needs to be licensed and opened.
Burchill said nuclear education programs need financial support from the Department of Energy to educate the next generation of nuclear engineers.
“These students who come out of high school with an interest in science and mathematics don’t just come with a slide rule,” he said. “They have inquiring questions to ask about environmental impact and ethical impact and so forth.”
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Courier-Express
May 19, 2008
Our opinion: Clean up one mess before we make another
Where should we get the electric power that we will need to generate in the decades ahead of us?
* Nuclear energy: Clean, environmentally friendly, cost-effective - but potentially catastrophic, and we have no national repository for nuclear waste.
* Wind turbines: Clean, environmentally friendly, cost-effective - but it makes noise that can be annoying within a quarter-mile, and turbines can kill birds (which, of course, can be replaced if the survivors breed more birds, as usually happens when predation increases).
We love electricity generated by nuclear reactors.
We do not love nuclear power plant wastes.
We detest the fact that these wastes are being stored at hundreds of sites, degrading and vulnerable, though Yucca Mountain in Nevada sits waiting. Sure, there are risks associated with transporting existing waste from power plant sites to Yucca Mountain. There are risks associated with storing the wastes at Yucca Mountain.
Those risks are less grievous than the current situation.
We cannot support the issuance of permits or licenses for new nuclear power plants until this nation moves its existing high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain.
Note, we did not say "to Yucca Mountain or to another acceptable site." There is no acceptable alternative that can be prepared and opened within the foreseeable future. In the meantime, all the ingredients for a radioactive "dirty bomb" are sitting around at hundreds of degrading, vulnerable sites.
Wind turbines do have their own problems, including the aforementioned noise and lethality. But we can expand our use of wind turbines piecemeal or incrementally, and back off if/when circumstances dictate.
That isn't the case with nuclear power.
As we said, we would love to endorse increased American reliance on nuclear plants for the production of electricity.
Until the wastes are stored at Yucca Mountain, we can't.
- Denny Bonavita
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
May 18, 2008
College teacher observes Washington's hardest job
Four months in Reid's office convincing
By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- For the past four months, Rutgers political science professor Ross K. Baker has been the proverbial fly on the wall in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Beginning Jan. 22, the first day of this year's congressional session, Baker essentially became a part of Reid's staff, even though his work consisted of observing instead of serving.
"It's funny. I came there with a somewhat simple image of the Senate. I went there with great clarity," Baker said.
"I came back a very confused professor. It's just so much more complicated. The procedures are more complicated. The relationships are more complicated. The political dynamics are more complicated. In a way, I was almost intimidated by the complexity."
This was not Baker's first experience as a detached academic observer in a congressional office.
Beginning in 1975, he divided a year between the offices of Sens. Walter Mondale, D-Minn.; Birch Bayh, D-Ind.; and Frank Church, D-Idaho.
Later, he went to the House to monitor Rep. Gillis Long, a Louisiana Democrat who was a cousin of legendary Sen. Huey Long, D-La.
In 2000, Baker went to the office of Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Four years later, he observed Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
"This one (observing Reid) was the toughest because conditions had changed," Baker said.
For example, previous lawmakers he observed were able to compensate Baker for some of the 20 percent in salary he lost when he was away from Rutgers.
But new ethics rules forbid such compensation, and Baker said his resources were "drastically reduced."
Nevertheless, Baker said, Reid gave him "extraordinary access that would make me the envy of any congressional scholar."
The biggest surprise for Baker was the magnitude of the Senate majority leader's operation.
"It is much larger than I thought," he said.
Like any senator, Reid has a state office, which is probably below average in size and number of staff members, Baker said.
But as majority leader, Reid has at least one staffer, and in some cases two or more staffers, to assist him in major policy areas such as energy, defense, foreign policy and health care.
In addition, Reid has aides for all of the Senate's 21 standing committees and about a dozen other staffers working in the media center known as "the war room."
A typical week in the majority leader's office included a staff meeting Monday morning and briefings Tuesday and Thursday to prepare Reid for weekly news conferences.
On Friday, another staff meeting usually is scheduled to discuss Nevada issues such as Yucca Mountain and recent problems at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.
Baker also was privy to policy briefings, and he acknowledged it was difficult sometimes not to get caught up in the advocacy of Reid's staffers.
Before he began his term in Reid's office, Baker described the Senate leader's job as the toughest in Washington, even tougher than being president.
After ending his four-month stay on May 9, Baker said his experience made him even more convinced of that.
"I've been observing Democratic and Republican floor leaders for years, and it seems to me all of them carry the cares of the world on their shoulders," Baker said. "Harry Reid presents himself the same way."
Baker said he was taken aback by the cordial relationship Reid has with Nevada's other senator, Republican John Ensign, who almost ended Reid's career in a close race in 1998.
"When I was in Chuck Hagel's office, the relationship with (Democratic Sen.) Ben Nelson's office was bad because they had run against each other in Nebraska," Baker said.
Despite his access, Baker said he was disappointed that he did not have more interaction with Reid.
"I think that, personally, Reid is a very kindly man," Baker said. "Before I went to his office, I would have said he's a very tough character, and I did see that side of him. But what surprised me was that there was almost a gentleness to him."
Baker's grandfather was a coal miner in Pennsylvania. For years, his family kept a box of Searchlight Diamond Matches that belonged to his grandfather.
Before he left, Baker said he gave the box to Reid, who grew up in Searchlight and whose father was a miner.
"The senator seemed very touched," Baker said.
--Contact Stephens Washington Bureau reporter Tony Batt at tbatt @stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
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Rutland Herald
May 18, 2008
Natives speaking out on uranium
By Susan Smallheer
BRATTLEBORO — The recent spate of advertisements promoting the electric power generated at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as "clean and green" doesn't tell the true story, said two Native Americans whose native lands are severely affected by the nuclear power industry.
Lorraine Rekmans, of the Northern Ojibwa people from Elliot Lake, Ontario, and Ian Zabarte, from Mercury, Nev., secretary of state of the Western Shoshone National Council, spoke in Brattleboro Monday night, their last stop in a weeklong visit to Vermont organized by the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance and Citizens Awareness Network.
Rekmans' home, which is located on the north shore of Lake Huron, was devastated by the pollution from 11 different uranium mines, which she said had turned 10 lakes in the area into radioactive waste sites.
For every pound of uranium, she said, there is a ton of mine waste, and the waste was dumped into lakes.
"People who get their power from nuclear plants should know that uranium doesn't just fall out of the sky," she said.
"Do Vermonters want their prosperity based on the abuse of other people?" said Zabarte, whose tribal council has gone to the United Nations to try and settle its dispute with the U.S. government.
Much of the Western Shoshone's tribal lands are now operated as the Nevada test site, and Zabarte said that it is increasingly polluted. "Safe? Clean? Reliable?" he asked.
Rekmans, whose father worked for the mining companies, is a Green Party candidate for the Canadian parliament. Her father died six years ago from exposure to the radioactive waste, she said. Her family got the $30,000 survivor benefit for her father's death from the government.
The uranium from the Elliot Lake mines was originally used for nuclear weapons for the United States, she said. The mines were opened in the early 1950s, and eventually closed in 1990, with an environment assessment by the government only launched in 1996.
"There was a boom in the 1950s, a bust in the '60s. A boom in the 1970s, and a bust in the 1980s," she said. She said the mines were operated by Denison Mines Ltd. of Toronto, and Rio Algom, of London.
Since the mines have been closed, much of the population moved away, and Elliot Lake has been turned into a low-cost retirement center.
Since the health and environmental effects of uranium mining have become better known, she said, only one Canadian province — Saskatchewan — still allows uranium mining and there are five mines there. British Columbia and New Brunswick have outright bans against such mines.
"Uranium mining causes cancer and silicosis," said Rekmans, who is the Green Party of Canada's aboriginal affairs critic. She now splits her time between Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and the Serpent River Reserve near Elliot Lake. She is a former news reporter and the former executive director of the Northern Aboriginal Forestry Association.
The uranium mining tailings look like desert sands, she said, and were a big attraction for recreation. The tailings need to be under water, to keep from becoming airborne and contaminating a bigger area, she said.
"We were never told 'don't hang out there,'" she said.
As a result, her region has a high level of health problems, and Elliot Lake is a community of 11,000 people, with 10 doctors.
The burden for nuclear power is falling disproportionately on native people, she said.
"We're bearing a disproportionate share; small remote communities," said Rekmans. "It's environmental racism. We were not aware of the risks. We were powerless to stop it."
Uranium mining was celebrated, she said. "Elliot Lake had a uranium festival. There were Radon Daughters," Rekmans said.
Rekmans said that she and Zabarte, a Western Shoshone Indian, were well-received in their talks throughout Vermont.
"Indigenous people are being exploited and victimized by this industry," she said. "But it was not in the forefront of their minds."
Zabarte, the secretary of state for the Western Shoshone National Council in Austin, Nev., said that the national nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca Mountain is on Shoshone land, and is not part of the United States.
"It's called trespass," said Zabarte, who cited a 1850s agreement, the Ruby Valley Treaty, between the Shoshone and the U.S. government as proof that the Shoshone maintained ownership of their lands. "It's called occupation. How did Hitler do it?" he asked. "We did not cede land to the US. We did not abandon our rights. Why would be give up our sovereignty?"
Zabarte said the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe of Death Valley, which is close to Yucca Mountain, has recently been certified under the Nuclear Waste Power Act as an affected party and would receive funding, the same as the state of Nevada, to investigate the Yucca Mountain proposal.
"People just forget about us — out of sight," said Zabarte, who visited the Vermont Yankee reactor Monday afternoon.
The Shoshone's land claim includes much of the eastern half of Nevada, and spills over into California, Utah and Wyoming.
--Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
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Pahrump Valley Times
May 17, 2008
Conservancy hoping for wild and scenic status
By Mark Waite
PVT
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. -- This could be the year a congressional bill is introduced to give the Amargosa River the designation of a wild and scenic river, Brian Brown, a founding member of the Amargosa Conservancy, told attendees at the Devil's Hole Workshop here last week.
Conservancy members are advocating the designation for a 23-mile stretch of the river between Shoshone, Calif., and Dumont Dunes that would place it under strict control by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Brown said the conservancy already received a letter of support from the Inyo County Board of Supervisors and enlisted the support of a member of the San Bernardino County board at a meeting in Baker, Calif., recently.
Members of the California congressional delegation are being approached to possibly introduce the bill.
"This year, because of an election year and the political climate, they are looking over their shoulder a little bit, so it's a good year to be approaching them about a legislative bill," Brown said.
The plan is to introduce the wild and scenic rivers bill along with a proposal to designate the Hoover Wilderness Area high in the Sierra Nevadas near Sonora Pass and Bridgeport, Calif.
"It will basically mandate the BLM to protect the surface flow of the river," Brown said. "It will hopefully open up some funding channels for the BLM to begin establishing recreational trails and doing appropriate management on that section of the river."
In his annual presentation at the workshop at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, Brown said the Amargosa Conservancy has been busy leading tours from October through April and are removing invasive plant species like tamarisk and now the Sahara mustard which cropped up after a rainy winter.
The conservancy has selected four sites to monitor groundwater flows in the lower Amargosa River, Brown said.
"In the southern reaches of the Amargosa area in the Shoshone and the Tecopa region there is an enormous amount of water flowing out of the ground, just free-flowing streams, but there is very little data how much," Brown said.
Susan Sorrells, who founded the Amargosa Conservancy, said recently the idea would be to create a package for the wild-and-scenic designation.
From Shoshone to the Amargosa Canyon, the river is largely free-flowing and scenic. Amargosa Canyon would be designated wild and scenic as well as an area of critical environmental concern. Then, as the course of the river begins to bear west toward Death Valley, the Dumont Dunes would remain a recreation area, "and most of that is running water. It would give us more weight when we are discussing water. If it starts to dry up, then other things are going to dry up."
Most of the focus on water flows has been farther north in Amargosa Valley, using funding from oversight of the Yucca Mountain repository project, he told the collection of scientists, many of whom are involved in that program.
Brown said the conservancy was also instrumental in the forming of a bi-state, four-county regional forum, which will hold its first meeting in Sandy Valley June 25. The forum consists of two members each from San Bernardino and Inyo counties in California, along with Clark and Nye counties in Nevada.
The plan is for the forum members to meet three times each year.
In a letter urging the creation of the bi-state forum last August, conservancy Executive Director Tami Tripp-Massie said important issues in the area are not being regularly addressed. Brown said his congressman, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, lives miles away in the northern San Fernando Valley.
"We would like the focus to be on water," Brown said, conceding meetings will include other topics as well. "These counties have an interest in this area, but because it is an outlying area for all four of these counties, it's often just not on their radar screen."
Brown said two petitions to list endangered species native to the Amargosa River area were filed in the last year -- the Amargosa toad in the Beatty area, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard in the Dumont Dunes.
The Amargosa Conservancy hasn't taken an official position on the listing of the fringe-toed lizard, he said.
"The petition asks for a portion of the dunes to be closed off to preserve habitat for this. That could have profound impact because the Dumont sand dunes, if you're not familiar with it, is a very heavily used recreational area," Brown said.
The dunes can swell to what he called "an instant city" on some three-day weekends, with 30,000 off-road vehicle enthusiasts crammed into an area of between 8,000 and 9,000 acres.
"If you close off a portion of that, where are they going to go? Is it like a balloon? If you squish it over here, will the ORV population squish out somewhere else?" Brown asked.
Overall, Brown said he feared there would be a reactionary backlash to the conservancy as "these darn environmentalists," but the organization has been accepted well in the community.
"Most people who live in Pahrump are new arrivals. They don't know much about the desert, they don't know much about the history," Brown said.
While the area was heavily used for mining in the past, it's a fragile ecosystem, he said.
Part of the education campaign undertaken by the conservancy included hosting two busloads of students from the San Fernando Valley on field trips to see the Amargosa River. Brown said they camped out on the lawn in Shoshone and visited Amargosa Canyon just outside Tecopa.
He said they were sent home and urged to write letters to McKeon, supporting the wild and scenic rivers designation.
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Bennington Banner
May 17, 2008
Vermont Yankee fuel assemblies dropped during move
Bob Audette
Brattleboro Reformer
BRATTLEBORO — A cask with 68 spent fuel assemblies dropped four inches to the floor during Vermont Yankee's first movement of nuclear waste Monday.
The cask was not damaged in the incident, said Rob Williams, Vermont Yankee spokesman, on Friday evening, nor were any workers hurt. A faulty electrical relay in a gantry crane in Yankee's reactor building caused the malfunction, he said. The relay has been replaced and the crane should be up and running again sometime next week once it has been tested, said Williams. Technicians were in the process of moving the cask from the reactor's spent fuel pool to a concrete storage pad outside the plant when the cask dropped to the floor.
The crane had operated with no problems during demonstration runs that were performed for the NRC during the past month, said Williams. It was also used about a year ago to refuel the boiling water reactor. When the crane is back in operation, it will pick up the cask and move it to a well where it can be lowered to ground level.
At ground level, a transport vehicle will pick up the cask and move it to the concrete pad where it will be kept company by several other casks. Currently, the cask is standing on the refuel floor, the fourth floor of the reactor building.
The fuel assemblies are being moved out of the spent fuel pool because it is has no room for any more. Without the fuel transfer, the pool would remain full, forcing Vermont Yankee to shut down.
No event notice was posted by the NRC because the malfunction wasn't considered a safety hazard.
Vermont's Department of Public Service was also satisfied there was no risk to workers or the public, said Steven Wark, spokesman for DPS. "DPS has had its nuclear engineer on site as an observer," he said. "We have been aware of the transfer incident and backup safety systems worked as designed."
Entergy, which owns and operates Yankee, was under no obligation to notify the public of the malfunction but, said Wark, "We are pleased that Vermont Yankee publicly recorded this event in an effort to further transparency."
There are currently 3,039 fuel assemblies in Yankee's spent fuel pool, with 120 to 132 fuel assemblies being added every 18 months, said Williams. Yankee plans to move 340 assemblies this year into five dry casks that will be stored on a concrete pad above the Connecticut River.
Dry cask storage is necessary because a federal repository for spent fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has not been finished, even though the U.S. government has spent more than $60 billion on its construction.
At that rate Yankee produces spent fuel, five new casks will need to be installed every three years until the federal government takes the waste. Yankee plans its next "loading campaign" in 2011, said Williams.
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PBS NewsHour
May 16, 2008
Six Years On, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Slowly Moves Forward
Energy Department officials confirmed this week that they plan to submit an application in June to license the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump as the nation's first spent-nuclear fuel repository.
The move comes decades after the department first began studying the site, and six years after President Bush approved its development. The project has spent those years mired in lawsuits and beset by controversy over its safety and environmental effects.
"We're in a holding pattern," said Gayle Fisher, spokeswoman for the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which manages the site. "Construction has stopped, and most of the site has been shut down."
Located in the Nevada desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain would be the only permanent nuclear waste storage facility in the United States. Right now, the 56,000 tons of that waste that already exist are temporarily stored at 126 sites across the nation. Each year, nuclear power plants generate approximately 2,000 more tons of waste.
Spent nuclear fuel rods contain highly radioactive elements that remain hazardous for many thousands of years. When removed from a reactor, the waste must first be cooled in a pool of water for months or years. Once cooled, the waste is moved to dry-storage bunkers made of concrete and steel. But these aboveground storage facilities are not designed to withstand weather and environmental factors for the thousands of years the waste will remain hazardous.
As far back as the 1950s, scientists recommended that nuclear waste be permanently stored in deep underground storage facilities. The Department of Energy began evaluating Yucca Mountain's suitability as a storage site in 1978, and in 2002 President Bush approved legislation to build the repository there.
But critics of the plan, including the state of Nevada, have mounted challenges ever since, filing a series of lawsuits against the federal government. Two grievances challenged the Department of Energy's guidelines and environmental impact statement. Another claimed that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission illegally revised regulations to develop Yucca Mountain. The state also contested the Environmental Protection Agency's exposure standards for residents near Yucca Mountain, saying that the amount of exposure EPA deemed acceptable was unsafe.
In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed all of Nevada's cases except that against the EPA. The court said the agency's 10,000-year regulatory standard limit ran counter to recommendations from the National Academy of Science that found that the material could be hazardous much longer than that. The EPA revised their guideline, requiring the site to maintain low nuclear exposure limits up to 1 million years after Yucca Mountain is closed. Some critics believe this new rule will preclude the Yucca Mountain Project from ever opening.
Yucca Mountain's opponents in Congress have also stymied the project by cutting its funding. In 2008 Congress refused to fully fund the Energy Department's $494.5 million budget request for Yucca Mountain, decreasing the amount to $386.5 million. As a result, the Yucca Mountain Program laid off 900 employees.
"Yucca is a politically-charged issue," said Energy Department spokeswoman Angela Hill, "and as a result Congress has not appropriated at our request."
The department is looking at other possible funding, she said, including a pool of funds from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act that required all nuclear producers to pay for waste disposal. The Nuclear Waste Fund's current balance is approximately $20 billion dollars. "Due to a complicated loophole, the Yucca Program does not have access to this fund," said Hill. The DOE has petitioned Congress to change the legislation granting the project access to the fund.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is one of Yucca Mountain's most ardent opponents. Vowing that the repository "is never going to open," Reid was instrumental in the project's $108 million budget cut. Reid writes on his Web site: "The Department of Energy has used science that is incomplete, unsound, and riddled with politics to sell this dead-end proposal, and Nevadans are not convinced."
As Yucca Mountain remains idle, the amount of nuclear waste in the United States continues to increase. In April, Frank Moussa, supervisor of the DOE's intergovernmental operations department, said at a public meeting that if and when Yucca Mountain opens, it will not be able to hold the total amount of nuclear waste in the United States.
Although Yucca Mountain could have the capacity to store 120,000 tons of waste, according to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the repository can store only 70,000 metric tons. The legislation would have to be amended in order to expand the storage capability of Yucca. The DOE introduced legislation in 2006 requesting the statutory limit be lifted, and also plans to report to Congress on the need for a second repository later this year, according to Hill.
In the meantime, Nevada continues to battle the Yucca Mountain project. Bob Loux, Director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said, "The DOE is engineering this to be a repository site instead of looking at the science that proves Yucca should be disqualified as a nuclear storage site. It has obvious scientific and technical flaws that cannot be overcome."
"Our science is sound," responded Yucca spokesman Allen Benson. "Our tests are thorough and complete."
The Department of Energy plans to submit its licensing application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30, 2008. The NRC will have three to four years to review the application for approval. Loux says Nevada is planning lawsuits against the licensing application and the accompanying environmental impact statement. If the NRC approves construction, Yucca Mountain's earliest opening date would be 2017.
--By Katie Mulik, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
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Reno Gazette-Journal
May 16, 2008
Lyon board to hear presentation on state perspective on Yucca Mountain
The Lyon County Board of Commissioners, at its meeting Thursday, was due to hear a presentation from a state official regarding the State of Nevada perspective on the Yucca Mountain Project.
Joseph C. Strolin, administrator of the Planning Division for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects/Nuclear Waste Projects Office, was expected to attend the meeting for the presentation and discussion regarding the state's perspective on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
According to the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects website, its mission "is to assure that the health, safety, and welfare of Nevada's citizens and the State's unique environment and economy are adequately protected with regard to any federal high-level nuclear waste disposal activities in the State."
The State of Nevada officially opposes the Yucca Mountain project.
The website also says, "The Agency for Nuclear Projects operates as part of the Nevada Governor's Office and consists of a Division of Technical Programs and a Division of Planning. The Executive Director [Bob Loux] is appointed by the governor and serves at the pleasure of the Commission on Nuclear Projects. The seven-member Commission advises the governor and legislature on nuclear wastes issues and oversees Agency activities."
It continues, "The Agency oversees the federal high-level radioactive waste disposal program; carries out independent technical, socioeconomic and other studies; works closely with state agencies and local governments on matters relating to radioactive waste; and provides information to the governor, legislature, and any interested parties.
The Agency uses a small, central staff supplemented by contractual services for needed technical and specialized expertise in order to provide high quality oversight and monitoring of federal activities, to conduct necessary independent studies, and to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts and resources."
Among some of its specific functions include: "Monitoring all DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] activities relative to the federal high-level nuclear waste repository proposed for Nevada; coordinating State and local responses and reviews of DOE technical and planning documents and proposals, and assuring that all affected State and local governmental agencies are appropriately involved in all phases of federal repository activities."
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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