Vol. 3, No. 13
.jpg)
May 1, 2006
Nevada's Online State News Journal
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . | |||||||
 |
Find Out
More About Our Wonderful State. |
COPYWRITING
|
|
Top News Story:
Missives Fly As More Join The Anti-Yucca Mountain Tumult
Pressure On Energy Department Continues --- DOE Response Is Still To Ignore All
by Johnny Gunn
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is continuing to plunge ahead with requests to double and triple the size of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository without answering any of the criticisms that have been leveled over the years including those of safety. They have no idea how long the casks to hold the high level waste will hold up to water mitigation; they have no idea what the radiation strength of the waste will be in 10,000 years or 250,000 years; and they won't discuss the charges of fraudulent information being used in place of good science. Other than that, the project is only 20 years or so behind schedule and falling further behind fast.
The Western Governor's Association (http://www.westgov.org) has sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources listing several complaints. The letter was signed by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and dated April 13. Over the years the western governors have been in favor of the Yucca Mountain project despite Nevada's continuing concerns about safety. Legislation introduced at the request of the administration recently (S.2589) calls for changes in DOE procedure that is a serious safety concern for the governor's association.
Napolitano's letter calls S.2589 a "fundamental departure" and an "unwarranted change" from the way nearly two decades of non-classified DOE shipping campaigns have been planned for and conducted. She says, "We note the following concerns in particular: Exemption of Yucca Mountain shipments from existing federal regulations." The governor's main concern is that "S.2589 would allow the Secretary of Energy to exempt Yucca Mountain shipments from any or all provisions of the Hazardous Materials Transportation Authorization Act." Napolitano's letter continues, "The result of this would be to make DOE essentially self-regulated for these shipments."
The Western Governor's Association letter was followed immediately by one from the Nevada Nuclear Projects director Bob Loux. Addressing the Senate energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired by Senator Pete Domenici, Loux called into account "the ability of the site's natural system around Yucca Mountain to protect the surrounding population from the radioactive waste." In particular, Loux pointed out, "DOE's scientists now admit that despite the claim of 20-years of study they have little understanding of the natural system."
Loux's letter is a virtual condemnation of the process DOE has used to attempt to get license procedures underway with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). "The Department of Energy," he says, "has given the site's adverse characteristics short shrift because the Department's strategy was and still is to rely almost entirely on the waste package alone to meet NRC license requirements. But knowing that is not what Congress intended in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE has up to now pretended that Yucca Mountain has passed a thorough site evaluation." Among other problems are water mitigation issues, safety of transportation, and length of safe service of the casks to be stored underground.
It has been pointed out over and over during these committee hearings that site studies of what is called the natural system have either not existed or have been passed off as not being worth discussing. It was in March of this year that NRC scientists said in a report to the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, "...if we have understanding of the natural system, then we can go in and say the natural system itself also is a good barrier...I think it behooves us to really look at the natural system...So we want to demonstrate a natural system can make large contributions to the repository performance... ." Apparently, Loux says none of this has been done.
While Domenici's committee was meeting in Senate Chambers, Nevada Congressman Jon Porter (R) was holding meetings of the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee in House Chambers dealing with the issues of a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, and the continued problems with alleged fraudulent e-mails from DOE contracted employees. The DOE Inspector General has been investigating the allegedly fraudulent e-mails and has turned evidence over to the U.S. Attorney in Nevada. The federal attorney has refused to file criminal charges in the case but Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman said the letters have had the effect of undermining public confidence in the quality assurance programs of the Department of Energy. The letters have been described as reckless and irresponsible by those involved.
Porter opened the hearing by commenting on DOE's Yucca Mountain project as a whole. "This project," he said, "is consistently failing under the weight of its own mismanagement and ineptitude at correcting recurring quality assurance deficiencies."
Porter had some heavy guns as backup for his session including Nevada Congressman Jim Gibbons (R) and written testimony from Nevada Senator John Ensign (R) and Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D). A report issued in March by GAO blistered DOE on its quality assurance programs and Jim Wells, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, GAO testified before the committee in defense of that report. Porter called his hearing "Yucca Mountain: Broken Management, Broken Quality Assurance, Broken Project."
In part the GAO report states, "DOE cannot be certain that its efforts to improve the implementation of its quality assurance requirements have been effective because it adopted management tools that did not target existing management concerns and did not track progress with significant and recurring problems." In his testimony before Porter's subcommittee, Wells said, "The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 required DOE to construct a repository for permanent storage and to begin accepting these wastes by January 31, 1998. In 2002, after more than 15 years of scientific study the President recommended and Congress approved Yucca Mountain as a suitable location for the repository. However, DOE continues to encounter delays and it is not certain when it will apply for the license to construct the repository."
There are about 50,000 metric tons of nuclear waste located at 72 locations around the country, mostly at nuclear energy plants. The United States gets about 20 percent of its electrical power from nuclear energy. A major part of the licensing procedure is safety and a quality assurance program was initiated by DOE to ensure that its work and technical information it produces are accurate and defensible. Persistent problems implementing those procedures have brought numerous questions about the quality of the work. Quality assurance questions continue even today.
Wells said, "DOE had completed efforts known as Management Improvement Initiatives to better manage quality assurance problems, but could not assess their effectiveness because its performance goals lacked objective measures and time frames for determining success." He said that began back in 2004 and in early 2005, "DOE reported that it had discovered a series of e-mail messages written in the late 1990s by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) working under a DOE contract that appeared to imply that workers had falsified records for scientific work." Wells continued, "Several of these messages appeared to show disdain for the project's quality assurance program and its requirements." In December 2005 and again in February 2006 "some project work was stopped due to continuing quality assurance problems."
Paul M. Golan is the Acting Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, DOE, and Porter asked him what he can say today (April 25, 2006) that will ensure the American people that the Yucca Mountain Project will be based on sound science. Porter said, "While Golan stated that improvements were being made, I'm unconvinced."
Following the hearing Porter exclaimed, "With the way this project has been managed, we can never be confident that we're dealing with sound science." He went on, "I'd like to say Project officials addressed my concerns about quality assurance failures and examples of mismanagement raised in the updated GAO report, but unfortunately, I'm left even more concerned for the safety of Nevadans."
What we appear to be seeing is a federal agency totally unable to manage a project of the size and complexity of Yucca Mountain. The management at DOE is sloppy at best, inept is a better word, and they don't have the necessary controls over their operation to make the project safe. Or to prove that what they are doing is safe and in the best interests of Nevada and the country. The energy secretary himself testified in Congress that the project is "broken."
•••