(November 23, 2001) In recent weeks and days, major blows have been exchanged in the battle for and against the Yucca Mountain high-level waste dump in the US State of Nevada.
(558.5340) NIRS - Since 11 September, pro-Yucca US Congress Members and State Governors have shamelessly pushed their long-time agenda with a new argument: now wastes must be moved as soon as possible from reactors in the densely populated East to the desert West because of potential terrorist attacks.
The US Department of Energy (DOE), however, suspended all its nuclear material shipments - including waste transports - the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, and again on 7 October (fearing reprisals once US bombing began in Afghanistan). A highly controversial train shipment of 125 irradiated fuel assemblies - which had been scheduled to roll 3,500 km from the failed West Valley, New York reprocessing facility to DOE's Idaho National Lab starting 20 September - has been officially postponed till at least spring, initially due to the fear of terrorism (and now due to faulty gaskets on the two waste transport containers, which prohibit it from traveling during cold winter weather conditions!). Although DOE has since lifted its ban, its actions were a clear acknowledgement that atomic waste transports are potential terrorist targets (see WISE News Communique 557.5333, "US nuclear waste train suspended due to terrorist threat").
DOE has admitted that the upcoming final report on its Yucca decision will not contain an analysis of terrorist threats to the site nor to the tens of thousands of train and truck transports past the homes of 50 million Americans that would be required to get the waste to Nevada. Such concerns can be dealt with later, DOE says. Nevada lawmakers have introduced a bill in Congress that would require DOE to address terrorist threats before recommending Yucca, but its chances of becoming law are slim.
On 1 November, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper broke the story that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the agency responsible for deciding whether Yucca will receive an operating license, was investigating accusations that someone within its agency had leaked still-secret licensing review plans to DOE, the agency which must apply for the license. Nevada officials, adamantly opposed to Yucca, immediately requested a copy of the document, but were told that it had not been made public yet. Nevada compared the leaked report to a teacher handing out the answers prior to a final exam.
Despite the scandal, the very next day NRC published its long awaited Yucca licensing rule. The rule incorporated US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) radiation release standards finalized last June. Both Nevada and a coalition of environmental organizations, including NIRS/WISE, have sued EPA in federal court for its extremely weak Yucca regulation. The rule would undermine the US Safe Drinking Water Act, allowing an 18 km nuclear sacrifice zone downstream of Yucca designed to dilute radiation in a presently used drinking water supply, rather than to isolate the waste from the biosphere.
On 8 November, President Bush nominated Margaret Chu to direct the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversees Yucca. During her previous 20 years at DOE's Sandia Labs, Chu helped open the first permanent repository in the US, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, for burial of plutonium-contaminated military waste.
9 November marked a victory for Yucca opponents, when Nevada's powerful Senator Harry Reid managed to slash DOE's requested Yucca budget for the next year by US$70 million. However, DOE still has US$375 million to work with in 2002, more than a million dollars per day.
On 14 November, a major Yucca milestone was reached when DOE finalized changes to its site suitability guidelines. DOE has had guidelines on the books since the mid-1980's, but Yucca Mountain leaks water so badly and so quickly that the site could not live up to them. Thus in 1998, NIRS and over 200 environmental groups called on DOE to disqualify Yucca based on its own rules. Rather than do that, DOE has changed the rules in the middle of the game, yet again weakening the environmental standards to fit the poor site. Although it still has not finalized its Environmental Impact Statement, and has never responded to around 15,000 previous comments (half of them concerning transportation dangers), DOE has opened yet another short public comment period during a holiday season. It ends on 14 December. Immediately after DOE revised its guidelines, Nevada announced it would challenge them in federal court. The growing number of anti-Yucca court actions may delay DOE's ambitious schedule, and seem destined to end up in the US Supreme Court.
On 15 November, DOE's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report that may prove a powerful tool to opponents of Yucca. OIG's investigation revealed that from 1999 to 2001 DOE's Yucca law firm, Winston & Strawn, had worked on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute, lobbying Congress in favor of pro-Yucca legislation, at the very same time it was reviewing DOE's license application preparations. Winston & Strawn admitted there were no institutional barriers separating work for DOE from its lobbying on Capitol Hill to promote Yucca. Citing the blatant conflict of interest and possible violation of regulations and laws, Nevada Senator Reid suggested that Winston & Strawn hire themselves a good defense lawyer. Nevada officials have called upon DOE and the Bar Association to investigate and punish the firm for its ethical meltdown.
Yet at the same time, Yucca opponents suffered a big blow when the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced a nationwide lobbying campaign to urge speedy approval of Yucca. Well known retired Governors, Senators, Cabinet Members, and a former Vice Presidential candidate, representing both the Republican and Democratic parties, have been hired to lead the "Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth" effort. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the third largest in the country, responded by quitting the national organization, as have numerous other local Nevada chapters. They've vowed to encourage Chambers in hundreds of cities along Yucca transport routes to do the same. The State of Nevada has launched a million dollar, nationwide ad campaign of its own on the dangers of "Mobile Chernobyl". A recent Nevada report about a severe, high-temperature train tunnel fire that burned for five days in Baltimore this past summer calculated that had irradiated fuel been on board, clean up costs could have reached US$14 billion and many thousands could have been exposed to potentially deadly doses of radiation.
Despite DOE's claim that 20 years of site characterization are now finished, the NRC, the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (a Presidentially-appointed science and engineering advisory panel), and experts overseas have criticized the Yucca studies. Concerns range from severe seismic activity, to how fast water flows through the mountain, to what could happen if a volcano erupts through the buried waste containers. A current article in Physics Today points to uncertainty about how the metal used for disposal containers would react to ground water when it is combined with corrosive chemicals and heated by the waste inside the repository. There's a growing recognition that, due to Yucca Mountain's inability to isolate waste, DOE is relying very heavily on engineered barriers, contradicting the original concept of "permanent geologic disposal."
DOE is expected to rule in favor of Yucca by early next year. President Bush, advocating the construction of new reactors in the US, will almost certainly give his thumbs up shortly thereafter. Nevada has already indicated it will exercise its legal right to veto those decisions. But the US Congress seems ready to override Nevada's veto with a simple majority vote in both Houses. DOE would then submit a license application to NRC, perhaps by the end of 2002. NRC would review the application for a number of years. Presently, the earliest waste shipments could arrive at Yucca in 2010. However, if Yucca clears all hurdles, the law could be changed to speed that schedule up. Nevada and a national coalition of environmental groups and grassroots activists plan to fight Yucca every step of the way, perhaps for years to come. Whether residents and officials in the 45 States along the transport routes can be swayed and mobilized to oppose Yucca will determine the ultimate outcome.
Source and contact: Kevin Kamps at NIRS (kevin@igc.org)