Design of repository already under way

The Department of Energy is still at least four years away from asking for a license to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, but already officials are talking about what a repository would look like, and that made its potential neighbors nervous on Monday.

During a meeting of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board in Las Vegas, DOE officials unveiled an early design for a high-level nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain to store 77,000 tons of commercial and defense wastes. The independent board was created by Congress to oversee the government's work at the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"I live in the shadow of Yucca Mountain," Pahrump resident Sally Devlin told the board. Pahrump is a growing community about 90 miles west of Las Vegas in Nye County.

"If you're going to talk about the licensing of a repository," she said, "I am requesting the documents and timetable on how the licensing will proceed."

Paul Harrington, DOE's licensing project manager, tried to assure Devlin and others that the research on Yucca Mountain's suitability is not yet complete.

Government scientists have learned a great deal from their 15 years of study at Yucca Mountain, he said, but there is still more to learn.

Scientists talked during the hearing about how much they did not know about the volcanic rock at the repository site and how they want to find out what happens if water floods buried nuclear waste canisters, which will remain hot, both in temperature and radiation, for thousands of years.

Yucca Mountain could be presented to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a repository license by 2003.

Before then, however, other scientists and the state of Nevada will have a chance to protest the selection of the site, he added.

The design ideas presented to the review board are a framework for scientists to begin talking about what a repository might look like, said Robert Howard of the DOE radioactive waste team. "It gets us talking about problems early," he said. "The design summaries are not adequate to support a safety case."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could take up to four years to license a radioactive waste repository, and can be expected during that process to fire questions at scientists in a setting as formal and as tough as a courtroom.

Ground-water contamination is a major concern for nearby residents.

With farmers growing fruits, vegetables and pistachios along with ranchers raising dairy cows downhill from the mountain, the public is concerned about details of plans for any repository, Judy Treichel, director of the Nuclear Waste Task Force, said.

In addition, scientific confidence has faded in the ability of Yucca Mountain, formed by volcanic activity, to prevent buried radioactive waste from reaching people, said Perry Montazer, who works with Nye County officials to oversee Yucca Mountain studies.

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