Yucca licensing documents missing

Out of 30 million pages from 3.7 million different documents that the Department of Energy has posted online to support a license for disposing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, some of the key ones are missing.

That doesn't sit well with Nevada officials who are fighting what they call "the dump" and want to strike DOE's certification of the so-called Licensing Support Network.

Their arguments were heard Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The panel also heard arguments from an attorney for the Department of Energy, who tried to persuade the panel that regulations allow for some flexibility on missing and incomplete documents.

Not so in this case, said Nevada's hired counsel, Charles Fitzpatrick.

Inside the NRC's $4 million hearing facility on Pepper Lane, with armed guards watching and security screening like that in an airport, Fitzpatrick argued that it's unfair to deem the network certified when it lacks so many "core basis documents" vital to DOE's license application.

Fitzpatrick said adding them to the collection in the 11th hour wouldn't give Nevada enough time to analyze them before DOE files its license application before its self-imposed deadline of June 30.

The Energy Department "has backed itself into a corner," Fitzpatrick said in his opening remarks to the panel chaired by Administrative Judge Thomas Moore.

"There are rampant inconsistencies" with the Licensing Support Network, Moore said.

If all goes as it did in 2004, the last time Nevada succeeded in striking the network's certification, the panel should reach a decision on Wednesday's hearing in about a week.

Jane Feldman, of the local Sierra Club, was one of about 40 members of the public who attended the hearing.

"I think it's incredibly frustrating that such a common sense issue is wrapped up in legal convolutions," Feldman said.

"The documents that Nevada needs to respond to are not available," Feldman said as she left before the end of the four-hour hearing.

Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said the missing information included seismic safety analysis for surface handling facilities near the planned repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain Project scientists were only wrapping up their bore hole drilling operations to collect data about earthquake faults in the site's Midway Valley a few weeks before DOE certified the Licensing Support Network on Oct. 19.

Within 10 days, Nevada had filed its motion to strike the certification.

"Our point is, we should be able to have those documents for a full six months if we're going to develop contentions," Frishman said during a break in the meeting.

Judy Treichel, representing the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, complained that the monstrous, online collection of documents isn't user friendly and many topics can't be found in a reasonable search.

Moore and panel Judge Alex Karlin concurred that some searches for documents by their titles fail because the titles are "jibberish" and "gobbledygook."

"You can't get anything out of those titles," Karlin said.

DOE's counsel, Michael Shebelskie, noted that a group of 800 documents have placeholder titles, some of which have been replaced with real titles.

"We have made available 1.3 million documents since 2004," he said. "On our own there are some groups of documents that we might improve the titles."

Shebelskie said the Licensing Support Network "generally speaking" can be 98 percent complete in 60 days and 100 percent complete in 90 days.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0308.