Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
August 7, 1999, Saturday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 8; Column
1; National Desk
LENGTH: 802 words
HEADLINE: Study Advances Plan for Nuclear Storage Site,
but Questions Remain
BYLINE: By MATTHEW L.
WALD
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Aug. 6
BODY:
A preliminary report on a nuclear waste
storage project in Nevada concludes that very little radiation would leak from
the site and that a repository there would be as safe as and much cheaper than
securing the waste where it now collects, at dozens of sites around the nation.
The preliminary environmental impact statement, released today by the
Department of Energy, acknowledges, though, that some major issues are not
understood well enough to recommend using the desert site, Yucca
Mountain, which is about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The flow of
water in the area is a major uncertainty. Opponents say assumptions in the
report used by the department about water flow in area are contradicted by other
evidence the department has gathered.
A department official deeply
involved in the Yucca Mountain project acknowledged that "we
have a lot of work to do" before a recommendation is made to the Energy
Secretary to proceed with construction. But, he said, "We probably know more
about Yucca than any other piece of property on the earth."
The report
is a milestone in the department's plan to build the repository. Another
milestone is likely early next week, when the Environmental Protection Agency
plans to issue a draft of the rules that a repository would have to meet to be
licensed for operation. The agency will call for the repository to hold the bulk
of the radiation for 10,000 years, but people familiar with the draft said the
agency had not decided how many miles the radiation should be allowed to spread
in that period.
The entire proposed site, which is 230 square miles, is
controlled by the Energy Department, the Air Force or the Bureau of Land
Management. But water flowing underground would eventually carry radioactive
materials beyond the site's borders.
The environmental impact statement
for the first time evaluates the safety of leaving the waste where it is, at 72
commercial reactor sites and 5 Energy Department sites, and finds little safety
difference, if storage canisters at the existing sites can be replaced every
century or so. But it finds that leaving the waste there would be much more
expensive in the long run than storage at Yucca Mountain.
The report says leaving the waste where it is would cost hundreds of
millions of dollars a year for thousands of years, while the repository would
cost tens of billions of dollars.
The statement is another step in the
department's case to move ahead with a project that critics say is doomed to
fail because engineers and scientists cannot say what will happen in coming
millennia, when gradual climate change could make Nevada a wet area, which could
rust the containers and spread the waste.
The biggest question is how
much radioactive material would gradually escape from the waste and be washed by
rain into underground water supplies. The statement says hardly any would
escape. It relies on Energy Department theories that the seepage of rainwater
from the top of the mountain, down 660 to 1,400 feet to where the waste would be
buried, and then another 600 to 1,200 feet to where underground water flows,
called the saturated zone, would be very slow. The department believes
radioactive material would move only slowly with the flow of water deep
underground. But outside scientists dispute those theories.
In addition,
rock at the site includes crystals that some scientists say are evidence of
intermittent upwellings of underground water, which would speed the spread of
radioactive materials. The department is seeking to demonstrate that these
crystals were formed in the same volcanic process that made the mountain, and
that the water table is stable at a level hundreds of feet below where the waste
would go.
The official involved in preparing the report said the
saturated zone and seepage needed to be studied further before a recommendation
to build the repository could be made. Building would ultimately be subject to
approval by Congress.
The State of Nevada opposes the project. At its
Nuclear Waste Project Office, Steven A. Frishman, the technical policy
coordinator, said that another important assumption behind the environmental
impact statement was how long the steel canisters holding the waste would remain
intact.
The Energy Department analysis assumes that of the thousands of
canisters that would hold the waste, only one would fail while it was still
"juvenile," or less than 1,000 years old. Opponents note that canisters now used
to store fuel at reactors have already had problems.
The 1,600-page
study is unusual because it lists only two alternatives: building Yucca or doing
nothing. Most environmental impact statements weigh a variety of options, but
department officials said the Nuclear Waste Policy Act did not provide for any
others.
http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC:
Photo: A view to the south of Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where
nuclear waste storage is under consideration. (Yucca Mountain
Project)
Map showing the location of the Yucca
Mountain: A Federal report bolsters a Yucca Mountain
nuclear repository site.
LOAD-DATE: August 7, 1999
