Officials unclear when license application will be submitted

By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- The Energy Department will not file the Yucca Mountain project's license application next month as planned, said Margaret Chu, the department official who oversees the project.

It was the first time the department has said it will not meet its goal of turning in the application by the end of 2004.

Chu, the director of the civilian radioactive waste program, said the department is "revising our original intent," by not submitting the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She did not give a specific reason for the delay.

Chu did not specify when the department plans to turn in the application.

"We do not expect long delays," Chu said at a management meeting between the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission today at the commission's headquarters. She said the department hopes to have an tentative new schedule by the next quarterly management meeting.

The department said it has a draft of the application done.

W. John Arthur, the deputy director of the department's Las Vegas-based Office of Repository Development, told the commission staff that a lot of progress has been made on the application but not enough to meet next month's deadline.

"We do not believe the delay will be significant," Arthur said. "We'll take no more time than is absolutely required."

Arthur said department staff has been reviewing each page of the application's draft. It is "technically sound and adequate" but needs more transparency, readability and consistency throughout the document.

The department sent documents to back up its license application to the NRC earlier this year, but an NRC licensing board found the information inadequate. The commission will not put a license application on its docket until six months after the backup information is certified.

Arthur said the department could recertify its material on the License Support Network, a database of documents supporting technical aspects of the project, by spring 2005.

C. William Reamer, director of the commission's High Level Waste Repository Safety Division, asked Chu if the department would not be handing in the application by the end of 2004. Chu said it would not.

Reamer later asked the department to put in writing any new decisions that are made on the schedule, especially if they are made before the next meeting, so that those involved are aware of them.

Meanwhile, the department is trying to figure out how to allocate the $577 million earmarked for the project by Congress over the weekend.

This is the same level it received in 2004 but $303 million less than the department's request for 2005.

Chu said it will take some time to study how the decrease from its request will affect the program and the department is already planning its budget request for 2006.

"We have reached a point where historical levels of funding no longer work," she said.