Officials warn budget cuts might delay Yucca license review

WASHINGTON — The license review to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain is on schedule so far but federal officials warned today that further budget cuts could kick it off track.

There already are signs that tight spending might be having an impact, even before Congress finishes Yucca Mountain bills for 2009 and 2010 that many expect will contain reduced spending.

Chris Kouts, deputy director of the Energy Department’s repository program, said there might be a delay in completing a groundwater study the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had ordered as part of its license examination.

The study is expected to be completed this fall, but “there is a resource issue” that could affect the timetable, Kouts said at a joint DOE-NRC staff meeting.

The same environmental analysts working on the groundwater report also are being called on to answer a series of other questions the NRC has posed in its license review, Kouts said.

Also, the same staffers are working under a deadline to respond to issues that the state of Nevada and other stakeholders have filed in the form of legal license contentions.

Kouts said the push should be over soon.

“As we sit here now (the groundwater report) is still on schedule but (a delay) has been broached,” Kouts said. “That one is a bit of a challenge. If we do decide the date needs to be modified, we will let you know.”

Attorneys for Nevada and California, affected county governments, the Nuclear Energy Institute and other participants in Yucca licensing have filed a combined 311 contentions, said Rod McCullum, an NEI official.

Also, NRC license evaluators so far have sent DOE 82 “requests for additional information” on various segments of the application, said Lawrence Kokajko, director of the NRC division of high-level waste repository safety.

NRC officials could not say how many questions they might have by the time they finish their examination.

“You have the same budget situation as we do,” Kokajko told Kouts. “We have had to juggle some things.”

The NRC staff is preparing a comprehensive safety review that will figure prominently in the agency’s ultimate decision in the next four years or so whether to allow the repository to be built.

“The NRC staff now is four months into our license review and I’d like to say we consider ourselves on schedule,” Kokajko said, adding the goal is to complete the safety review in 18 months “if we have sufficient resources.”

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