Nevada Focus: Work continues on Yucca Mountain, potential nuke dump

Nearly two miles later, the trolley jerks to a halt 800 feet below the surface, where the federal Department of Energy scientists hopes to stash thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste.

Altogether, the 25-foot diameter tunnel stretches nearly five miles. If the dump is approved, there would eventually be more than 92 miles of tunnels.

Engineers are testing for evidence of water percolation through the rock; the effects of the 428-degree heat coming from the waste casks; the effects of pressure on the rock; and for any seismic movement along the faults and cracks in the mountain.

The tunnel, illuminated by harsh white halogen lights, is cut into what geologists call "welded tuff," a flat, concrete gray material spider-webbed with cracks.

Construction manager "Doc" McNeely describes it as "very, very hard, brittle stuff, but it's fairly light." It was deposited 11 million to 15 million years ago as a layer of molten debris and ash from a volcano 20 miles to the north. He says it's main attribute is that it's dense, almost impervious to water.

"Comparatively speaking, this is a Formica table top and the other stuff is a sponge," he says.

In one alcove a dozen engineers working on what McNeely describes as the key experiment now under way in the mountain.

Behind a thick viewing glass is a full-sized replica of a disposal tunnel now approaching 300 degrees. He says it will be heated and then cooled slowly over the next four years to see what effect heat has on the "tuff."

After the long trolley trip to the surface, the tour heads to the top of Yucca Mountain, at the edge of the Nevada Test site 120 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

One of the reasons for its choice is easily apparent - there is almost no sign of human habitation in any direction except for the Yucca Mountain facilities and U.S. 95.

And from the 6,700-foot summit of the hump called Yucca Mountain, there isn't a tree in sight.

The need for the dump, as far as the DOE is concerned is clear: More than 32,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods now sit at reactor sites around the nation.

The amount continues to grow by 2,000 metric tons a year. If a dump at Yucca Mountain opens as scheduled by 2010, there will be more than 80,000 metric tons of fuel waste awaiting disposal - enough nuclear waste to bury a football field 23 feet deep.

And that doesn't count the thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste produced by other sites stored around the nation - including highly dangerous plutonium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and millions of gallons of liquid waste generated while making those warheads.

The infamous K-Basin tanks at the Hanford nuclear weapons plant in Washington are already leaking into the Columbia River. Experts say that waste must be removed before it completely poisons the river and a wide swath of Washington's environment.

Hanford is the warning poster for problems nuclear utilities face unless they get rid of the waste. And public concern is growing nationwide about on-site storage at the more than 100 power plants, research and military sites.

Nevada's congressional delegation says the DOE decided on the state because it has relatively few people and minimal political clout. In addition, they say congressional leadership hoped that, because the state already had the Nevada Test Site and a low-level waste dump at Beatty, public objections would be minimal.

Supporters of the plan admit that the vast majority of the waste is generated in the East and in populated California.

But they argue it makes no sense from the point of human safety to bury that waste near the nation's huge population centers.

Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bob Loux says that over the years the state and various scientists have presented evidence of dangers from earthquake damage, radioactive gas leaks, possible groundwater contamination and even the chance a dump at Yucca Mountain would explode. He said any of those should disqualify the site, but all have been sidestepped or ignored.

"The argument changes every time someone shows them the site won't work," he said. "Whatever the problem is, DOE simply says we could engineer around that. Now they're saying the canister will last 750,000 years because that's the only way it would be safe."

"They don't have any tests to show that," he said, pointing out that is 10 times longer than recorded human history thus far.

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