TRUST THE GOVERNMENT? EPA guarantees that nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will have limited radiation releases for ONE MILLION YEARS! Who's gonna be around that long to make sure health standards are met?

Date:   8/10/2005 11:35:56 PM ( 19 y ago)

The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/politics/10yucca.html?ei=5090&en=5d5c87...

August 10, 2005
Million Years of Safety Are Sought for A-Waste
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it had revised its health standard for the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada to limit radiation releases for a million years.

The new standard is a response to a federal appeals court ruling 13 months ago that said the previous standard, for 10,000 years, did not go far enough. The revision includes an additional standard for 990,000 years.

Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under legal challenges led by Nevada state officials since Congress selected it in 1987 to be a central depository for nuclear waste now stored across the country. But the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed all but one challenge to the project last summer.

The remaining question was the agency's health safety guarantee, which was many fewer years than the National Academy of Science had recommended for the project.

The announcement by the environmental agency drew stinging criticism from Nevada lawmakers who have consistently opposed moving the nation's radioactive material into their state.

"I am appalled at the complete arrogance of the E.P.A. in announcing these standards," said Senator John Ensign, the Nevada Republican who accused the agency of proposing a standard that lacked scientific basis.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, called the new approach "voodoo science and arbitrary numbers." Mr. Reid added that he was "astounded that the E.P.A. actually put those recommendations on paper."

The executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, Robert R. Loux, echoed their sentiments. Mr. Loux said the revised standard was far more lenient than the current one for people who live close to nuclear energy plants and included no protections for groundwater beyond 10,000 years.

"It's just an outrageous standard," he said.

Officials at the environmental agency said the new approach would adopt the earlier proposed standard for the first 10,000 years and a second, less strict one, from 10,000 to one million years.

If the two-tier approach is adopted after public comments and public hearings in Nevada and Washington, the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will use it to judge the application that the Energy Department will submit to open the site.

A spokesman for the department, Craig Stevens, said the department believed that it could meet the revised standard.

The court ruling last year sent scientists at the environmental agency back to their laboratories to redevelop models and produce one that they were confident would reflect safe limits for the additional 990,000 years by withstanding potential threats like earthquakes, climate changes and volcanic activity.

"This was an unprecedented scientific challenge," Jeffrey R. Holmstead, chief of the air and radiation office at the E.P.A., said in a conference call with reporters, explaining how the revised standard would protect the next 25,000 generations of residents living near the site.

Mr. Holmstead said that under the revised proposal residents near the site would be exposed to no more than 15 additional millirems a year in the first 10,000 years and no more than 350 additional millirems after that.

Americans are exposed, on average, to 360 millirem a year from X-rays, riding airplanes and other sources. Mr. Holmstead said a routine chest X-ray produced about 10 millirem, a mammogram about 30 and daily life for a year in a high-altitude city like Denver about 350.

Mr. Holmstead said he was confident that the court would approve the new proposal, although he hedged slightly when asked about public confidence in a standard that applies so far into the future.

"We do the best job we can based on the best science we have," he said. "Ten thousand years from now, a million years from now, who knows how technology can evaluate the need? Who knows if radiation will even be an issue? There's just no way to predict."

These days, just a handful of people live anywhere close to the edge of the proposed site. Among the 1,100 nearest, about 20 miles away in Beatty, Nev., reaction was mixed.

Lamar Walters, chairman of the Beatty Advisory Board, a panel that oversees town operations, said people he had spoken to about Yucca Mountain were just as comfortable with the 10,000-year standard.

Alpheus Bruton II, owner of the Beatty Club, a bar, said that even though he felt comfortable with the shorter standard, he was surprised that the environmental agency could be so sure about a standard 100 times longer.

"I just can't imagine how the E.P.A. can guarantee anything for a million years, including whether the earth will still be here," Mr. Bruton said. "To say anything is going to be good for a million years is preposterous."



Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
 

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