State officials unsure of Yucca discussions

Nevada officials battling the Yucca Mountain project are taking a wait-and-see approach to U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt's urging this week that federal lawyers try to work out a compromise with them over using the state's water to drill bore holes at the planned nuclear waste site.

There appears to be no appetite for discussions, let alone a compromise, the state officials said Friday

And, the longer they wait the more drilling the Department of Energy will do despite State Engineer Tracy Taylor's cease-and-desist order that was reinstated July 20.

Taylor said he can't tell yet if anything will be gained by discussions with Justice Department attorneys Stephen Bartell and Keith Saxe. They have refused to comment on the matter.

"Until I sit down and meet with them, I won't know," Taylor said from Carson City. "I don't know."

Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams, whose client is Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said she is expecting a call Tuesday from Bartell.

That would be the first step in any compromise discussions, if they take place at all.

Loux said it's hard to tell what will happen after Tuesday.

"No one wants to talk about these issues ahead of time," he said. "I think it seems difficult that any sort of negotiations can be successful, especially if DOE doesn't stop drilling.

"If they're not willing to stop, I don't think there can be any discussions. If they're willing to stop then at least we'll be able to sit down and talk but I don't know if we'll be able to reach an agreement," Loux said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said through his spokesman that there is no logic in Nevada wanting to compromise.

"How do you compromise with someone who is stealing from you?" Reid's spokesman Jon Summers wrote in an e-mail from Lake Tahoe where Reid, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and former President Clinton were meeting.

"The Department of Energy is stealing water from Nevada in a rush to turn our state into the nation's nuclear dumping ground," Summers wrote. "The DOE should adhere to the state's cease-and-desist order."

Similarly, Ensign's spokesman, Tory Mazzola, said the senator's position remains strongly opposed to any effort that would facilitate DOE's work at Yucca Mountain.

Hunt is weighing arguments on whether he should block Taylor's order, allowing DOE to continue drilling through probably November.

That's when DOE expects to have collected enough rock samples to gauge the safety of surface facilities from earthquakes and floods for a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Water from wells near the site is needed to cool and lubricate drill bits and to create mud for extracting core samples from rock layers.

As many as 80 bore holes are expected to be drilled hundreds of feet below Midway Valley where surface facilities are planned.

The hangar-size buildings are being designed to handle and house highly radioactive spent fuel assemblies before they are entombed in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Hunt questioned Bartell on Department of Energy officials stringing Nevada along on the bore hole project, at first saying only 300,000 gallons of Nevada's water were needed at the site where 15 bore holes were dug and then coming to the court with intentions of using 4 million gallons to complete some 80 bore holes.

The state, in a previous court approved agreement, disallowed use of any water to drill bore holes because such site characterization work ended when then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain to President Bush in 2002.

Nevertheless, DOE launched a two-phase drilling program in 2006 that was "below the radar," in Loux's words.

Then, after Taylor determined last month that using Nevada's water for geotechnical work at Yucca Mountain was not in the state's interest, DOE continued to drill after his July 20 deadline.

Bartell, in turn, filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction that was argued Wednesday in Hunt's courtroom.

Loux said he expects Hunt will decide on the matter by the end of this month.