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Inyo County looks to Yucca licensing process |
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Friday, 18 January 2008 |
 The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to submit its application for the use of the Yucca Mountain facility as a nuclear waste repository no later than June 30, 2008 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the meantime, preparatory work, including tunnel boring work (above) continues at the Nevada site. Photo coutesy U.S. Dept. of Energy By Ken Koerner
Register Staff 1-17-2008
The proposed use of the Yucca Mountain facility as an underground repository for nuclear waste continues to demand attention and provided the focus for yet another gathering.
A meeting of the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board took place in Las Vegas yesterday. The agenda was dominated by a number of the ongoing issues and concerns connected with the burial of spent-fuel from nuclear power plants across the nation.
Inyo County has previously made clear to the Technical Review Board its areas for concern. “We presented substantial information to the TRB that raised red flags for us and pointed a need for caution,” said Matt Gaffney, project coordinator for Inyo County’s Yucca Mountain Repository Assessment Office. “In May, 2007,” Gaffney said, “we talked with the TRB about the threat posed by the spread of radionuclides if radioactive contamination were to reach the Lower Carbonate Aquifer, which underlies the repository and has several discharge points on the western side of the Funeral Mountains in the Furnace Creek area of Death Valley National Park – and how even the impact of groundwater pumping levels could have substantial implications for the migration of contamination … yet the U.S. Department of Energy’s most recent Repository Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) does not appropriately make an assessment of this potential impact on California.”
Gaffney noted that this most recent Technical Review Board meeting in Nevada is not Inyo’s last chance at having its voice heard on this and other issues. “The Department of Energy,” said Gaffney, “seems poised to submit an application on June 30 for their license to operate the Yucca Mountain facility. At that point, if their application adheres to the submission guidelines, it would move the Yucca process into a new legal phase, at which point Inyo’s voice can be distinctly heard.”
According to Gaffney, the TRB’s meeting agenda in Las Vegas didn’t indicate they would be covering “new ground” but definitely would touch on some controversial ground. “The TRB,” Gaffney said, “is primarily comprised of engineers, not hydrologist or geologist.”
Gaffney noted that the TRB’s “ultimate focus at this juncture seems to be centered on waste-packaging and the creation of the fail-safe container, which fits in with their mandate and their area of expertise. However, our review of the available documentation on this front raises questions regarding the TRB’s forecast of corrosion rates for storage containers and whether they are a dependable predictor going forward. We must consider what can happen should those ‘fail-safe’ containment vessels ‘fail.’”
In regards to the issues surrounding the potential for groundwater infiltration, Gaffney said, “the TRB’s staff was very receptive to the information that we presented. The board members themselves might not have been quite as receptive.” Gaffney noted that the TRB, along with the Energy Department, “feels the pressure to move things along where Yucca Mountain is concerned.”
According to Gaffney, Ward Sproat, director for the DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, has said that the agency has “a moral responsibility to address the issue of nuclear waste on behalf of future generations.”
“Well, we, also,” said Gaffney, “have an equally-great moral responsibility to do that, too – and as infallibly as possible.”
Beyond the issue of a container’s integrity once placed in underground storage beneath Yucca Mountain, Gaffney noted that there are also critical concerns that deal with transportation dilemmas still to be examined.
In addition, “there are socio-economic considerations we also intend to keep on the table going forward. The residents of Inyo County need satisfactory answers that address all of their myriad concerns,” Gaffney said.
Inyo County’s elected official in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Buck McKeon, has also been a strong supporter of a thorough assessment of all the crucial aspects of opening Yucca Mountain as a final resting-place for America’s nuclear waste. Thus far, McKeon’s position has remained in opposition to the Yucca project moving forward.
Though Gaffney confirmed Inyo’s concerns haven’t always seemed to gain the desired traction in the past, he said he feels confident they still will. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process,” said Gaffney, “will be Inyo’s best chance yet to be heard. The only certainty about the future of Yucca Mountain at this juncture is that nothing is certain.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 22 February 2008 )
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