New York Times
February 16, 2002
Refusing to Take Nuclear Waste
By KENNY GUINN
ARSON CITY, Nev.

Yesterday, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham finally forwarded to the White House his plan for high-level nuclear waste disposal: Put it all in Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush took just a few hours to send the plan on to Congress with his blessing. But like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain only to have it crash back down, time and again, the Department of Energy can send its Yucca Mountain plan wherever it likes — and the plan will crash again. Why am I so sure? The Energy Department tends not to complete its more grandiose projects, even when they were based on sound science and common sense. This project is based on neither.

When Congress ordered the Energy Department to study Yucca Mountain, it required that the site must be geologically sound: the stability of the repository would come from the geology of the site, providing a rock- solid backup to manmade waste containers.

Today, after $7 billion and almost 20 years of study, the Energy Department's own contractor, Bechtel/ SAIC, as well as the General Accounting Office, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board have each concluded that additional studies need to be performed. Those studies must be completed before Yucca Mountain could ever be seriously considered for permanent nuclear waste disposal.

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which Congress created specifically to look at storage problems, said last month that the "technical basis" for the Energy Department's performance estimates "is weak to moderate." Last month the acting head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, who has been working on the Yucca Mountain plan, seemed to agree, saying, "We think we have sufficient science for the step that we are at." That's the problem. The Energy Department has all along acted as though "the science" would always catch up with the politics, but the science is supposed to be the foundation upon which a decision to move forward is made. The Department of Energy has it backward — decision first, science later.

The secretary of energy has also tried to link his Yucca Mountain recommendation to national security. This is an absurd invention of the nuclear industry and an opportunistic use of the tragedies of Sept. 11. Spent fuel will have to be stored at reactor sites across America for 50 years or more as it waits to be safely shipped, because even if the Yucca Mountain repository is approved and built, it will not be ready to receive most of the waste for decades. And should Yucca Mountain get up and running, much of the fuel will remain above ground for perhaps 100 years if the Energy Department sticks with its current plans for very gradual insertion of fuel into subterranean caverns.

Meanwhile more nuclear waste will be produced around the country and continually sent out for hauling to Nevada, creating, in essence, a network of nuclear vulnerability throughout the nation, with one very big terrorist target 100 miles from one of the nation's fastest-growing cities. This is not a recipe for increased national security.

Today nuclear power plants are building inexpensive and safe dry storage facilities of their own, at their plant sites, for their spent fuel. They will continue to do this whether or not Yucca Mountain proceeds.

I was hopeful that President Bush would keep his promise to Nevada not to push the project forward absent a sound scientific basis. The president has let that opportunity go. Nevada will now pursue every means available to ensure that the laws of science and the nation ultimately prevail.

I have, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1987, 60 days in which to veto the recommendation. I will do so. The House and Senate leaders will then have 90 days to decide whether to override the veto by majority votes of each chamber. If the 90 days of consecutive session pass, then the veto stands.

Nevada did not pick this fight, but we are determined to win it.


Kenny Guinn is the governor of Nevada.