NRC puts complaint about Yucca on hold

WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has shelved another Nevada complaint about government management at Yucca Mountain.

Officials with the nuclear safety agency said it is too soon to judge a request that Sandia National Laboratories, a major contractor at the nuclear waste site, be investigated for safety and suspended from the project in the meantime.

The petition filed by Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on Oct. 16 was based on documents that she said suggested Sandia managers were putting repository safety behind a rush to meet deadlines set by the Department of Energy.

DOE and Sandia officials responded that the complaint was baseless.

The NRC can't take action on the Nevada complaint because the Energy Department has not yet applied for a license to build the repository, said Aby Mohseni, deputy director in the Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety.

"NRC will not prejudge the adequacy of a potential license application, or the safety analyses it may contain, before an application is received," Mohseni said in a letter sent to Cortez Masto on Nov. 15.

Sandia National Laboratories is preparing safety analyses that Energy Department officials will rely on to argue that highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and other forms of high-level nuclear waste can be stored within Yucca Mountain and shielded from the elements for thousands of years.

In October, the NRC set aside a Nevada request to limit the amount of nuclear waste that could be stored above ground while awaiting burial at the Yucca site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Agency officials similarly said they could not judge that matter before receiving a DOE repository application.

In September, a complaint by the state and by environmental groups that the Energy Department was withholding key documents from scrutiny also was declared premature by the nuclear agency.

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