NRC rejects Nevada's Yucca Mountain challenge

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel Wednesday rejected Nevada's challenge to a government document database required for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump to go forward.

The decision allows the Energy Department to move ahead, as planned, with submission of a license application to build the controversial 77,000-ton dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Nevada had argued the Energy Department's digital library of millions of documents supporting licensing of the dump was incomplete even though DOE certified it in October.

The so-called Licensing Support Network must be certified as complete at least six months before the Energy Department can submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The DOE plans to submit its license application by June 30.

In one of many arguments it is marshaling against the long-delayed radioactive waste dump, Nevada had argued that the massive online network did not contain key documents still being prepared or not yet written.

The NRC's Pre-License Application Presiding Officer Board rejected that argument on Wednesday, a week after a three-judge panel heard arguments in Las Vegas.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission "regulations recognize that parties and potential parties, such as DOE, will continue to develop, prepare, and finalize additional documentary material, and to supplement their document production, after the date of initial certification," the board ruled.

"The regulations do not specify that DOE, or any other potential party, must finalize all documentary material before it can certify," the ruling said.

Ward Sproat, head of the Yucca Mountain project for DOE, welcomed the decision.

"This enables DOE to move forward as planned and to submit a high-quality license application for the Yucca Mountain repository to the NRC," he said in a statement.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., condemned the ruling and vowed to keep fighting the dump. Reid is expected to seek significant budget cuts for the Yucca Mountain project next year.

"It is clear that the LSN is not complete and that DOE is playing hide the ball with key documents in order to prevent the state of Nevada from having all the information it needs to oversee and challenge the license application process," Reid said.

The Licensing Support Network contains over 3.5 million documents estimated to exceed 30 million pages.

A similar NRC board had upheld a state challenge to the Energy Department's database in June 2004, forcing its overhaul.

The opening date for Yucca Mountain, planned as the first national nuclear waste dump, has been pushed back repeatedly amid lawsuits, money shortages and scientific controversies, and now it's not expected before 2020. Meanwhile nuclear waste is piling up at commercial reactor sites around the country even as some lawmakers in Congress push for expansion of the nuclear power industry.

———

On the Net:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licensing Support Network: http://www.lsnnet.gov

Yucca Mountain Project: http://www.ymp.gov

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Bookmark/Search this post with: