Defense agency visited Yucca, says no intention to use site

WASHINGTON – Officials from a Pentagon agency toured the Yucca Mountain’s tunnels last month but do not intend to work at the Nevada site, a spokesman said Monday.

A small group from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency visited Yucca on Feb. 17, confirmed Daniel Gaffney, the agency’s spokesman. He described it as a one-time deal.

“(O)fficials did tour the facility, just as they tour many (Energy Department) facilities, but it was not with the intent to conduct work at the Yucca Mountain site,” Gaffney said.

The agency, based at Fort Belvoir, Va., is charged with developing strategies in response to threats from weapons of mass destruction. It has conducted exercises on portions of the sprawling Nevada National Security Site adjacent to Yucca Mountain.

Gaffney said the tour was one of the agency’s periodic visits to underground facilities as it builds understanding of hard targets where deadly weapons might be produced and stored.

The defining feature of Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the 5-mile exploratory tunnel and numerous alcoves the Energy Department carved during decades of study to determine whether the site could safely store high-level nuclear waste. The site has been dormant since the program was terminated in 2010.

The site visit was reported by the trade publication IHS The Energy Daily. It reported the tour was taken by six officials from the Consequence Management Division, which develops tactics to respond to worst-case scenarios of a nuclear, chemical or biological weapons attack.

Citing unnamed sources, Energy Daily reported the agency was searching for suitable tunnels to perform “catastrophe scenarios” that could include studying train derailment effects during a calamity.

“The agency has never had any plans to do anything” at Yucca Mountain, Gaffney said. “And no plans testing anything in the future.”

“Our guys like to look at as many underground facilities as they can, to gain a better understanding of their general nature, strengths, weaknesses, how things are constructed,” he said. The tour “was not investigative or preliminary into looking at anything.”

If there was something specific it was trying to learn from touring Yucca, it likely would be classified, he said.

Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter Wednesday to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz seeking details of interactions between the department and the agency. They sought confirmation that “planning, operations or other activity” at the site have been discontinued.

Pro-Yucca lawmakers say Congress approved the Nevada site for nuclear waste disposal, and any other uses could threaten its ability to be licensed as a repository, and could possibly be illegal.

But five years after the program was terminated, the visit by military representatives has focused new attention on what if any uses might be found for the site if not nuclear waste.

The Energy Department on Monday declined to comment on the visit or discuss reports involving alternative uses of Yucca Mountain.

It could not be determined whether there were costs incurred to open the Yucca site for the visit. In 2011, the department cited costs of about $15,000 to mitigate radon in the tunnels and to make other accommodations for a visiting congressional delegation.

Contact Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.