Nevada postmortem: DOE failed to win trust on Yucca Mountain project

WASHINGTON -- If any state is ever going to agree to have nuclear waste buried in its backyard, the government is going to need to do things much differently than it did at Yucca Mountain, according to Nevadans involved in the long repository battle.

For instance, the feds will need to bring serious cash and perks to the table, and should be prepared to grant an unprecedented strong voice to local leaders. At least $2.5 billion a year. A national laboratory or other prestigious research park. Substantial input on safety matters. Plus, a governor would need to be given the ability to kill the deal at almost any time.

Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said those were among the "meaningful incentives" that might persuade a state's leaders to take on the risk. Not that Nevada is interested at any price, he added.

Breslow and other Nevadans who spoke this week to a high level federal study commission emphasized that a decidedly different approach failed to win the Department of Energy many friends over Yucca Mountain.

"A repository cannot be a federal project," Breslow said. "It must be a community project."

In what amounted to a "lessons learned" session on the Yucca project, Breslow, representatives of Clark, Lincoln and Nye counties, and anti-repository activist Judy Treichel were invited to address the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future.

While the Obama administration is seeking to terminate the project that would bury highly radioactive used nuclear fuel within the Nevada ridge, the commission has been given two years to recommend alternatives. They were directed not to consider a possible revival of the Nevada site.

In a Yucca postmortem of sorts, the Nevadans recounted experiences with the Department of Energy over the past several decades. From their point of view, it was not pleasant for the most part.

Breslow said the relationship was doomed from the start. In 1984, he said, the state sued to ensure it could monitor the DOE's work.

From the state's standpoint, things went downhill even faster after Congress picked the Nevada site in a 1987 law that came to be known as the "Screw Nevada bill."

"DOE went from asking, 'Is Yucca a suitable site,' to 'What do we need to do to make the site work,' " Breslow contended.

Darrell Lacy, head of the Nye County nuclear waste repository office, said it might have been fairer if the government had kept studying more than one location.

"If you ran across a deal killer for a site, if you had multiple sites you could kill one of them without killing the program," he said. "With Yucca Mountain as the sole site, there was at least a perception on some level that there were compromises made on safety" to keep the effort alive.

Clark County consultant John Gervers said public acceptance was an important ingredient the Department of Energy never was able to achieve.

When it encountered opposition, the department's response was to "deny or minimize the risks... and to attribute people's fears to misinformation or ignorance of technical processes," he said.

Except for two years when the Yucca project was headed by Ward Sproat, an engineer from a private sector background who showed an understanding of outreach, DOE demonstrated little regard for state and local government concerns, according to Gervers.

"DOE was focused on the hard science, and the softer issues were overlooked a little bit," Lacy added.

Mike Baughman, a consultant for Lincoln County, said residents have been left hanging for 26 years not knowing whether a repository will be built or not.

"That is a very long time for anyone to have to deal with uncertainty," he said. "That is quite unfair."

"This program, despite what anyone of any position of authority in the government has ever said, and particularly our politicians, that they want a scientific solution, this has been purely driven by politics. For us at the local level, the political approach to resolving this very technical issue results in a significant erosion of trust and confidence that anyone really knows what they are doing."

Study members stressed their job is not to judge the suitability of Yucca Mountain, or to find a new waste site.

Susan Eisenhower, an international security consultant and granddaughter of the former president, pressed Breslow: If a nuclear waste site could be deemed safe, what would be the big deal?

"If the science is right, are the risks really that substantial?" Eisenhower asked.

"For people running for re-election, of course. Always," Breslow said, explaining politics has long been present in the debate over nuclear waste.

That's why a state would have to be overwhelmed with perks, he said.

"In order to get politics to even get a chance to buy in, there is your incentives package," he said.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.