Ruling on Yucca Site Delays Waste Delivery
Jul 10 - Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
Nuclear waste appears to be on its way to Nevada, but thanks to portions of a federal appeals court ruling, it won't get there anytime soon.
Nevada's Yucca Valley site has been approved by a U.S. appeals court, but
questions about how long into the future the facility must provide protection
for people against radiation leaks could delay the reality for a long time.
Utah activists fear the nuclear industry will bring its waste to Utah while
lawyers and the Environmental Protection Agency argue over what regulations
should govern Nevada's Yucca Mountain waste site.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia on Friday upheld the government's decision to single out Yucca Mountain
as the site of a nuclear waste dump but ruled that the federal plan does not go
far enough to protect people from potential radiation beyond 10,000 years into
the future.
To comply with the court's ruling, the EPA must battle through appeals,
permits, lawsuits and a lot of political red tape to put the court-ordered
regulations in place.
The nuclear industry won't wait that long to find a place to stash their
waste, said Jason Groenewold of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.
"If the decision is upheld as announced today, then Utah is definitely
going to be a prime target for the nuclear industry," Groenewold said.
The court's objection to the current radiation standard raised new questions
as to whether the Yucca Mountain project will ever get off the ground.
Currently, the EPA requires that the government protect the public from
radiation leaks for 10,000 years. Friday, the court threw out that standard, and
ordered that protection extend beyond 10,000 years.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham assured reporters that he is confident the
radiation exposure standard can be resolved and that the project will move
forward.
Groenewold and other activists aren't quite as optimistic. He said the demise
of Yucca Mountain could bring high-level nuclear waste to Utah.
"The nuclear industry is going to redouble its efforts to dump the waste
in Tooele County's Skull Valley," Groenewold said. "They are going to
look for all potential available options, and this is one of the few they have
available now."
Skull Valley has long been proposed as a temporary nuclear waste facility
until the Yucca Mountain waste site is completed. The Goshute Indians have
negotiated with nuclear power companies to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear
fuel rods on their Skull Valley reservation.
Former Gov. Mike Leavitt and his successor, Gov. Olene Walker, have been
adamantly opposed to a high-level nuclear-waste facility, includ- ing the
proposed temporary storage site in Tooele County on Goshute tribal lands.
"We have always been against the idea that Skull Valley was going to in
some way be a temporary waste site pending taking high-level nuclear waste to
Yucca or anywhere else," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the
Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Steve Erickson of the Citizens Education Project said he wasn't so sure that
Friday's decision would speed up the development of a nuclear waste facility in
Utah. He said, however, that Utah will endure more political pressure by the
nuclear industry, and "that's worrisome."
But on the bright side, nuclear waste will not be traveling soon on Utah's
railroads and highways on the way to Yucca Mountain, Erickson said.
Project planners say the government can safely bury 77,000 tons of nuclear
waste in canisters at Yucca Mountain. The waste consists of defense waste and
used reactor fuel building up at commercial power plants.
Congress approved the Yucca Mountain site in 2002 under very restrictive
rules. Site planners are seeking a license from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and hope to have the facility completed and open for business by
2010.
The court also rejected Nevada's claims that it was unconstitutional to
single out the state for a national nuclear waste site.
It also refused to review how the Bush administration chose the site,
although Nevada argued the process was illegal.
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