Water use, drilling go on

What began in June as a clear attempt by the state engineer to stop the Department of Energy from drilling boreholes at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site now appears as clouded as the muddy water that's in the center of the dispute.

At the close of business Thursday, DOE's acting director of the Yucca Mountain Site Operations Office sent State Engineer Tracy Taylor an overnight letter declaring that the so-called first phase of drilling that's been under way this year "is not affected by the cease and desist order (and) is anticipated to conclude by the end of September."

That means DOE intends to use an additional 191,000 gallons of Nevada's water, or more than half of an acre-foot, according to the letter from James W. Hollrith, acting director of the Yucca Mountain Site Operations Office.

That's enough water to supply one household in the Las Vegas Valley for a year.

Hollrith's letter came less than a week after U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt denied an emergency motion by U.S. attorneys representing DOE who sought to block Taylor's June 1 cease-and-desist order.

Taylor's order was temporarily lifted on June 12 and then reinstated on July 20 when Department of Justice attorneys at the time said the conditions were "unacceptable."

Taylor had offered to let the Energy Department use the water for 30 days, but after that "the use of water for any bore hole drilling whatsoever is prohibited," he wrote in a July 16 letter.

That matches the tone of Hunt's 24-page ruling in favor of the state. In essence, his ruling said any DOE use of water for borehole drilling to collect rock samples needed to support a license application for constructing a repository and surface facilities was outside the scope of a court-approved agreement.

The state "faced the unauthorized use of its water, a violation of state water law, a violation of an agreement it entered in good faith, a violation of this court's order authorizing that agreement, and interference with its obligation to its citizens to enforce its laws and preserve its water," Hunt wrote in his Aug. 31 decision to deny the Justice Department's emergency motion.

Hunt's ruling let stand Taylor's June 1 cease-and-desist order. But that order only instructs DOE to "cease and desist the use of water for the second phase of the bore hole drilling project," not the first phase that DOE continued to keep in operation.

Earlier Thursday, Taylor spokesman Bob Conrad said from the state engineer's perspective, "The cease-and-desist is meant to be for water use regardless of whether its Phase 1 or Phase 2."

About two hours later, though, in his letter to Taylor, Hollrith wrote: "DOE has decided to immediately discontinue using water for drilling and boring activities associated with the (Phase 2) borehole drilling program, as provided in your June 1" cease-and-desist order.

Conrad reacted, saying in an e-mail that the state engineer "has not read this letter. However, I can say that we appreciate the DOE halting the use of water" for Phase 2 drilling. ... We will continue discussions with the DOE regarding the use of water for Phase 1 drilling and other purposes."

Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects and a longtime opponent of the Yucca Mountain Project, said, "For every day that goes by they're drilling and collecting data."

"The state engineer can issue a new cease-and-desist order. That's one of the ways to solve it," Loux said. "These guys (DOE officials) are being flagrant in light of the judge's order. We think they're thumbing their nose at the court."

Today, a new chapter in the Yucca water saga will unfold when an inspector from the Nevada Division of Water Resources goes to the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to verify compliance with Taylor's cease-and-desist order.

If the inspector is denied access or finds that water is being used to cool and lubricate drill bits or create mud for collecting rock samples, Loux said, then Nevada's attorneys could file an emergency motion of their own with Hunt, asking him to find DOE officials in contempt of a federal order.

Nevada Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams, who represents Loux, said Thursday, "I'm going to explore every option to force DOE to comply with the court's order, which found that borehole drilling is an unauthorized purpose for use of Nevada's water, regardless of which phase it is."