DOE calls for new rules on Yucca plan

Public meetings

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will hear an update on scientific research on the suitability of Yucca Mountain to hold high-level nuclear waste on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Alexis Park. The meeting is open to the public.

Two hearings will be held on the rules DOE must follow to establish a repository at Yucca Mountain:

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. at Terrible's Lakeside Casino, 5870 South Homestead Road, Pahrump.

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. at the St. Tropez-All Suite Hotel on East Harmon Avenue, west of the UNLV campus.

The Department of Energy staff wants to change the rules it must follow to put a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

But Nevada officials charge that the DOE is changing the rules to ensure that a repository is built in the state, whether it is safe or not.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being considered for the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. The soonest it would be built is 2010.

Those charged with determining the safety and suitability of a Yucca Mountain repository are seeking more flexibility in coming to their final decision on whether to recommend a repository for 77,000 tons of nuclear waste be built.

DOE officials will hear public testimony on the proposed changes Feb. 2 and 3 in Pahrump and Las Vegas, after which Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will decide whether the rules can be changed.

There is no appeal of the secretary's decision, though the state could sue.

Meanwhile independent experts on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board this week will review progress on scientific research that is looking into potential safety hazards from underground water and earthquake faults.

The DOE is expected to explain to the board its progress on finding answers to faster-than-expected ground water movement, how high heat affects Yucca's rock and whether earthquakes will pose a threat to an underground repository.

On the rules change, the DOE is asking to restrict the new rules to Yucca Mountain, but they would not apply to any future repositories that may be needed. The original guidelines, written in 1988, disqualified a site if it had active earthquake faults, volcanic activity or ground water that traveled off site in less time than 1,000 years.

If the proposed rules are adopted, the DOE would abandon safeguards and strict boundaries incorporated into the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Those safeguards would disqualify Yucca Mountain, critics said.

"With the new guidelines proposed by the DOE, there are no specific conditions that would qualify or disqualify the site," said Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, which opposes a repository at Yucca Mountain.

Instead, the DOE wants to rely on a scientific model that passes or fails the mountain on its total predicted performance with whatever information is available at the time.

"It relies on assumptions and expert judgment," Strolin said.

The proposed guidelines ignore any social, economic or transportation impacts as required by current law, Steve Frishman, the state's technical coordinator, said.

The Environmental Protection Agency was chosen to set a limit on radiation to protect the ground water from radiation at Yucca Mountain, but the DOE proposes to give that responsibility to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The EPA's proposed guidelines for those limits have been stricter than the NRC's.

The NRC is the agency that must license a repository, if Yucca passes scientific muster.

Ivan Itkin, DOE's director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, has extended the deadline for written comments from Feb. 14 to Feb. 28.

"All they're doing is extending the comment period and holding two hearings," Frishman said. "In this 10,000-year program, giving us an extra two weeks really doesn't matter."

In its review of the scientific research, the technical review board is expected on Wednesday to hear how DOE plans to use drip shields to prevent water from falling onto the buried containers, possibly leading to faster corrosion and the escape of radiation into the ground water.

Later scientists who are investigating chlorine-36 from nuclear bomb fallout that traveled through cracks in Yucca's rock to a depth of 30 feet in less than 50 years will present an update.

Other experts will tell the board the latest in an ongoing project to date microscopic gas and water bubbles discovered in Yucca's tuff. If their ages are young -- less than 1 million years -- it could forecast the return of hot, rising ground water could threaten buried wastes.

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