Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

NRC urged to ignore features of Yucca dump

State says it is unclear when or even if planned drip shields will be installed

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials have previewed one of their arguments to persuade government regulators to refuse a license for the Yucca Mountain Project.

The state says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should disregard planned features of the proposed nuclear waste repository because it is unclear when they will be installed, if at all.

At issue are drip shields the Energy Department says will help prevent radioactive particles from escaping into the environment.

The drip shields are titanium sleeves that are to be installed over canisters of decaying nuclear waste to deflect water that may find its way into repository tunnels and cause the containers to corrode.

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, raised questions about the drip shields in a letter sent May 18 to Nils Diaz, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Loux said the state wants to notify the NRC in advance of issues it will bring up during licensing.

"We are in a process of trying to communicate with them on an ongoing basis that we are watching these things and we have some very specific ideas about them," Loux said Monday.

The Energy Department has scheduled to file its repository application in December. If it is accepted for formal review, the NRC will begin a three- or four-year license evaluation.

Loux said the drip shields likely will be made one of hundreds of formal contentions, or objections, the state plans to file during NRC licensing.

The Energy Department had no immediate comment Monday on the state's letter.

Energy Department officials say the titanium drip shields, along with the special alloy waste canisters and the natural features of Yucca Mountain, will collaborate to keep radioactive particles from decaying nuclear waste from migrating through the mountain and into groundwater.

But Nevada officials contend the Energy Department is not specifying when the shields will be installed.

"According to DOE's plans, this could be 100 years from now, or possibly even 300 years from now," Loux said in the letter. At this time, he said, the issue of whether the shields will ever be installed "is a matter of sheer speculation."

Given the uncertainty, the drip shields shouldn't be factored into the performance models that the NRC will study to gauge the repository's safety, Loux told Diaz.