Opponents warn of effects of DOE water permit

If State Engineer Michael Turnipseed grants the Department of Energy the right to use ground water for building and operating a nuclear waste repository, Nevada may feel the negative effects before the project is approved.

Social scientist James Flynn responded to a DOE attorney's questions on why the federal government's request for 430 acre-feet of ground water to supply crews during construction and operation of the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas matters to Nevada's future.

"This is a risk, a gamble for the state of Nevada, because there is a significant negative economic impact on the tourism industry," Flynn said Tuesday in the second day of a two-week hearing. Flynn, the director of Decision Research Inc. of Portland, Ore., is an expert in risk perception who has done many studies of impacts from hazardous and toxic sitings. He was a consultant on Yucca Mountain for the state until 1994, when federal funding was cut.

Earlier studies by social scientists have shown that nongaming industries in Nevada do not pay for themselves but strain the state's economy, Flynn said. The growth does not pay for itself because the state does not tax or require fees, but must supply more public services such as roads, police, medical care and public services.

What is different about a high-level nuclear waste repository able to bury 77,000 tons of radioactive waste is the image it projects to people who might consider Las Vegas for a vacation or a retirement home, he said.

Yucca Mountain is the only site being considered as a dump for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The DOE is using ground water at the site on a temporary permit good until 2002. If permanent water rights are not approved, the project will continue, but it will be more difficult, DOE officials said.

On Monday Turnipseed said the state has determined that enough water exists to fill DOE's request and that the request does not interfere with other uses of ground water, such as irrigation, drinking water and grazing. He also said that his office will not consider the possible radioactive contamination of the ground water in its decision to grant water rights.

That left opponents with only one argument -- to prove that the DOE's permit would not be in the public interest.

If the state grants the water rights to the DOE, people might believe it is a significant shift in Nevada's overwhelming opposition to the nuclear waste repository, Flynn said.

"I think it could be a signal event of a major change, a shift in the state's attitude," Flynn said.

The public shows no sign of weakening its opposition, Judy Calder, director of the Alan Bible Center for Applied Research in Incline Village, said.

Since 1986 Calder has done seven public opinion surveys on Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. Opposition has grown in those surveys, she said.

She has never seen a single issue in her career in which opposition did not waver, but increased over time -- until Yucca Mountain, Calder noted.

"It is the only issue in 22 years of having been a Nevada resident and during a long tenure at the University of Nevada measuring public opinion that united Nevadans year after year after year," Calder said.

Steve Frishman, the state's technical coordinator, noted that the DOE said it might need 480 acre feet of ground water instead of 430 acre feet if a Yucca repository is built with radioactive containers spaced to keep the rock from reaching the boiling point.

An acre-foot of water is enough to provide a family of four with water for a year.

The DOE will present its case for getting the ground water today, earlier than expected as the state wrapped up its presentation on Tuesday. The hearing will continue next week in Turnipseed's Carson City office.

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Director Robert Loux wrapped up the opposition to DOE water rights.

He said the state opposes giving ground water to the DOE because the mountain is unsuitable and cannot be made safe for burying radioactive wastes. In addition to failing scientifically, people do not trust the DOE, the site was selected by politics -- not science -- and the harm to the economy from a leaking repository or a transportation accident is inevitable, he said.

"It would seem granting the permit is one step closer to building a repository," Loux said.

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