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October 29, 2003
YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT Official warns of more delays
By STEVE TETREAULT "It's almost a fact" that the Energy Department won't be burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain by 2010 as planned, said Edward McGaffigan, a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Rather, he said 2015 is a more realistic target given complex and lengthy procedures at the NRC, which must evaluate DOE's repository proposal in two separate licensing proceedings before spent fuel could be accepted at the site 50 miles northwest of Pahrump and 20 miles east and north of Beatty and Amargosa Valley respectively. McGaffigan said licensing could be delayed even more if Energy Department officials believe they can adjust the repository proposal during the licensing process, as he said they have signaled. "DOE has to have its act together the day it applies," McGaffigan said. "At the most senior levels of DOE, I'm not sure they understand this." Despite the regulator's assessment, DOE continues to believe it can meet a 2010 timeline to open a Yucca repository, department spokesman Joe Davis said. Davis said DOE plans to file a license application "that will meet all environmental and regulatory requirements" and will not need to be changed after it is submitted. The department continues to eye a December 2004 application filing. "We believe we can get a license to the NRC and with their review periods and requirements, get waste emplaced in 2010," Davis said. Bob Loux, head of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said McGaffigan's assessment is consistent with that of state officials who are leading opposition to the repository. "It might even be worse that if you take a look at what has yet to be resolved," Loux said, citing ongoing studies on waste package corrosion, volcanic activity at Yucca Mountain, and the impact of military flights near the sites among other topics. "I can see if DOE were to do this right, they would be out there until 2006, 2007, 2008 before they even file an application," Loux said. McGaffigan's comments were prompted by a report this week from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an advisory panel that challenged the Energy Department's preferred repository design. Review board members told the Energy Department its plans for spacing waste containers within the repository will cause localized corrosion in the canisters and possible leakage of radioactive materials. In comments during and after a meeting Thursday between NRC commissioners and their nuclear waste advisers, McGaffigan said he has noticed DOE officials saying they plan to maintain flexibility in their planning. He warned there is little flexibility when it comes to NRC licensing. Evaluators are expected to take three to four years to review DOE's initial construction license, plus multiple years more for a required second license to actually receive and place waste into the repository. "We don't get hearings over quickly around here," he said. "Getting the commission to complete its work in three or four years, we need a high quality and stable DOE application." On top of that, McGaffigan said he expects experienced attorneys hired by the state of Nevada to aggressively challenge the license all along the way in hearings that will resemble a court trial. By contrast, he said, the Energy Department is being hampered because its lawyers have little experience in nuclear licensing. The project's legal contractor, Winston & Strawn LLP, left in October 2001 and the department has not hired a replacement firm. Officials say they are looking. "Somebody needs to lay this out," McGaffigan said. "DOE is sitting there without counsel and there are some very naive notions coming out of DOE officials' mouths about 'flexibility.'" |
