Oak Ridge Eyed As Nuclear Waste Site

Aug 14 - Chattanooga Times/Free Press

With legislation proposed to require interim nuclear waste storage in the 31 states with nuclear power reactors, TVA officials said they expect Oak Ridge, Tenn., could be a future repository for the spent fuel now stored onsite at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar plants.

"The site likely would be Oak Ridge," Tennessee Valley Authority President Tom Kilgore said.

"The proposal requires that they (the U.S. Department of Energy) find a land suitable to preprocess the waste. I'm sure it will take two or three sessions for Congress to work it out."

Craig Stevens, press secretary for the Department of Energy, said he has "no idea" whether Oak Ridge would be a candidate to become an interim storage site.

"We think it would be difficult to license 31 sites," he said. "However, we do appreciate the ongoing dialogue" in Congress.

Mr. Craig said the Department of Energy is putting all its efforts toward licensing a permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. He said the agency has no list of interim storage site candidates and probably will not have unless the bill becomes a law.

"A lot will have to happen between now and then for any bill to become a law," he said.

The proposal, added to a bill seeking interim storage now that the Yucca Mountain project is delayed until at least 2017, would allow spent nuclear fuel to be consolidated at temporary storage sites -- as long as the waste stays in a state that already has nuclear power plants. Mr. Craig said governors may form state compacts in which one state's interim site could serve partnering states.

Under the bill, Nevada and Utah explicitly would be ruled out as storage sites. The legislation was written by congressmen from those western states and New Mexico. The sponsors are Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M.; Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

But governors in some parts of the nation already are opposing the bill.

A group of governors from the Northeast, where many nuclear reactors are located, is urging Congress to reject the plan.

"We are deeply concerned and must strongly oppose language... that would suddenly shift long-established national policy on nuclear waste disposal by requiring commercial spent fuel at local or regional federal consolidated facilities in up to 31 states across the nation," Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri and Vermont Gov. James Douglas wrote on behalf of the Coalition of Northeastern Governors.

Gov. Phil Bredesen could not be reached for comment, said spokeswoman Dana Coleman.

In Tennessee, TVA already stores 1,096 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste onsite at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant in Soddy-Daisy and the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Rhea County's Spring City. TVA stores 118 metric tons of the waste outside the Sequoyah plant in concrete and steel casks because the original storage pools inside the plant can hold no more.

The 31-state plan was proposed as an alternative to another interim proposal to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a license for the Utah facility last year, but electric utilities backing that plan have abandoned the project, and Congress passed a law complicating plans to ship waste there by rail.

In any interim storage scenario, the nation's 55,000 metric tons of waste presumably would be buried eventually at a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain.

Congress returns to Washington in September.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp and Sen. Bill Frist, both R-Tenn., did not respond Friday to requests for comment.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., was in China and couldn't be reached for comment, according to spokesman Harvey Valentine.

Mr. Kilgore said nuclear industry officials still believe Yucca Mountain, where many underground radioactive devices for wartime were exploded, is the right place to store spent fuel and nuclear assemblies.

"Technologically, nuclear waste is not a problem, but it is a political issue," Mr. Kilgore said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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