Yucca Mountain concerns continue

Comments made during a public hearing on the Yucca Mountain supplementary draft environmental impact statement at the Pahrump Community Center June 7, ranged from requests to extend the public comment period to suspicions the nuclear waste site managers changed the decision because the project won't work, to fear by one speaker of an outright nuclear megablast.

The draft EIS for the plan to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste was issued Aug. 13, 1999. U.S. Department of Energy EIS Document Supervisor Jane Sommerson said that elicited 11,000 comments. Sommerson said comments received after the preliminary EIS have resulted in some changes.

Scientists have been conducting tests on the heat generated by the nuclear waste. The EIS states the hotter nuclear waste will heat the adjoining rock up to 200 degrees. The plan is to blend hotter and cooler material in a cooling tank. It also includes a plan to leave as much as half of the nuclear waste, up to 40,000 tons, outside to cool as long as 50 years before placing it in the mountain.

Besides concerns over temperature, plans were revised for moisture control. The spaces between the emplacement drifts will be widened to allow moisture to flow through and a drip-shield of corrosion-resistant titanium added over the waste packages.

The hearing was another chance for opponents of the project to express their views.

Lisa Gue said no one will have a chance to comment on the transportation plan and noted the state of Colorado designated its own preferred route. Robin Sweeney, with the DOE, said the transportation routes won't be pinned down until four years before the waste is scheduled to be shipped in 2010.

Susi Snyder, with the Shundahai Network, said the EIS dealt with earthquake potential, but not volcanic eruptions and especially human intrusion. Shundahai Network is an international anti-nuclear organization that supports environmental justice and sustainable energy as an alternative to nuclear energy.

Joe Ziegler, with DOE, said it's possible a well driller could tap into the waste packages, the DOE is talking about a post-closure monitoring period of the site of from 100 to 325 years. The site will fill up with nuclear waste in just 26 years.

Ziegler said the fuel can't be shipped unless it's at least five years out of the reactor, 10-year-old fuel will be shipped first. The average age of the spent nuclear fuel will be 26 to 27 years, he said.

"It seems like you're picking the site and asking the guidelines to fit," said Kalynda Tilges with Citizen Alert. Citizen Alert was founded in 1975 and works to assure public participation in issues affecting people of Nevada, particularly nuclear weapons and nuclear waste.

Don Hancock said the DOE is in a rush to put together the documents, with a schedule to meet in order to issue the site recommendation this year.

"The reason to do this document is because Yucca Mountain doesn't work," Hancock said.

"In reading the supplemental environmental impact statement, these people just don't know what they're doing," Helen Van Ronk said. The nuclear waste will be stored outside for up to 50 years where temperatures can reach 150 degrees in the summer, she said. "They want to put in a dry storage area with 200 acres of cement."

Van Ronk mentioned there was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in 1932, and a 5.2 earthquake in 1994 that caused $1 million in damage to DOE facilities in Mercury. "Looks like we might be due for another one any time now," she said.

Piper Weinberg of Shundahai Network, said the EIS disrespected the original inhabitants, the Western Shoshone Indians. The concept of environmental justice -- in which projects with environmental impacts aren't just placed in poor neighborhoods -- should be enforced in this case, she said. The EIS should quantify impacts on downwinders, those who drink the water, cancer rates and accident possibilities, Weinberg said.

The DOE also hasn't given replies to comments in the EIS process, Weinberg said. Sommerson said the written comments will be published in the final EIS.

"Is this design going to have to sprawl as Las Vegas is doing or the test site is doing?" Weinberg asked.

Willie Fragosa said he's had visions of the holocaust from World War II.

"We have a nuclear holocaust being put on the people of the United States and all around the world. This time the trains are coming to us," Fragosa said. Scientists can put a man on the moon and find a cure for AIDS, he said. "We should take another couple hundred years to figure this out."

"People feel defeated. Why bother fighting, it's a done deal," Tilges said. "That makes me feel like for 20 years we've been the victims of psychological warfare if we can be defeated by words."

Greg Getty remarked, "If ever nuclear waste comes together, it will simultaneously explode in a megablast."