Thursday, August 25, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Lobby group backs EPA on radiation
Nuclear power industry says two-tiered
standard will protect future generations
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
The nuclear power industry's chief lobbying arm gave its strong support Wednesday to the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed radiation protection standards for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Skip Bowman, president and chief executive officer of the lobby group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, issued a statement backing the EPA standards two days after the agency scheduled hearings on them in Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley and Washington, D.C.
"The EPA's concept for the radiation protection standard at the Yucca Mountain repository will protect future generations near the desert site," Bowman said, referring to the volcanic rock ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
He noted, however, that "a standard that regulates beyond the internationally accepted 10,000-year standard to 1 million years, or 25,000 generations, is inconsistent with all other regulatory standards for non-radioactive and radioactive hazardous materials."
Nevada officials have criticized the EPA's logic for being too lenient when peak doses are expected to occur after hundreds of thousands of years.
Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux has also expressed concern that the EPA, in his view, has backpedaled from its previous stance that a 150 millirem radiation protection standard is unacceptable.
To satisfy a court ruling, the EPA issued a two-tiered standard this month, with one set of limits for the first 10,000 years of repository operation and a second set for the succeeding years, out to 1 million years.
The radiation dose limits were set at 15 millirem and 350 millirem per year, respectively, above natural background.
A millirem is a small amount of energy that produces the same biological effect as a similar unit of absorbed dose from ordinary X-rays.
For comparison, a chest X-ray exposes a patient to 10 millirem, while a mammogram results in a 30 millirem exposure.
A person living in the United States receives an annual average 300-millirem dose of radiation from natural and man-made sources.
The EPA announced in Monday's Federal Register that hearings and informational sessions on the proposed standards will be Oct. 3, in Amargosa Valley; Oct. 4-5, in Las Vegas; and Oct. 11, in Washington, D.C.
Exact times and locations will be released at a later date.
