The U.S. Department of Energy submitted 116 applications to the Nevada Division of Water Resources to drill 103 wells along the route of the proposed Caliente railroad to Yucca Mountain.

Allen Benson, director of the DOE office of external affairs, said the applications were turned in before the change of administration in Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama's administration cut the budget for the Yucca Mountain program by $100 million to $288 million and has discussed finding alternatives to a nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain.

The applications were dated Jan. 20 on the Nevada Division of Water Resources Web site, Obama's inauguration day.

"There may be some changes from the perspective of this administration," Benson said, not wanting to get into details about the rail line.

"Our mission right now is to support the license application and to answer questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Benson said.

The NRC has begun hearings on the DOE application to construct Yucca Mountain which are proceeding ahead.

The Caliente railroad would be 320 miles, meaning a well would be constructed roughly every couple miles.

While Benson downplayed the applications, Jason King, acting state engineer for the Nevada Division of Water Resources, said, "They haven't been withdrawn so we're at least processing them through the publication period."

The DOE would use 6,000 acre feet of water from all the wells combined. They are to be used to compact the rail bed. King said the water rights would go away after the railroad is built except for 13 applications for permanent use along the proposed rail route.

One acre foot of water is enough to fill an acre of land a foot deep, roughly 320,000 gallons or enough for two families of five for a year.

The applications cover 18 different hydrographic basins, King said.

When asked whether his office would deny the requests, King said, "We can't make a predetermination on these applications."

But he referred to past decisions that denied DOE use of water for test drills at Yucca Mountain as a guide.

"We've already ruled on Yucca Mountain and the water for Yucca Mountain so they'll go through publication, we'll see what kind of protests we get," King said. "One of the criteria is whether it's in the public interest to determine whether these applications will go forward."

Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency Director Bruce Breslow told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the state will protest the water applications.

"With the president's clear message that he does not plan to move forward with the Yucca Mountain project, we feel these applications do not make sense," Breslow said.

Well locations wre published in the legal notices in the newspaper the last two Fridays. They include locations ranging from 10.5 miles southeast of Goldfield, down to within 3.5 miles northeast of Beatty.