Nuclear Waste Review

April 2002

Guinn Declares 'The Battle Begins' As He Vetoes Yucca Mountain Site Recommendation

Statement of Reasons Supporting the Governor of Nevada's Notice of Disapproval

Yucca Mountain Project Gets a New Chief: Senate Confirms Margaret Chu as Director

Barrett Plans Retirement from DOE as New Director Takes the Reins

Chairman of House Committee on Transportation to Hold Hearing on Nuclear Waste Issue

Recent Poll Indicates Americans are Evenly Divided on Yucca Mountain Issue

NRC Licensing Board to Hold Hearings in Utah

'West Wing' Nuclear Waste Story Line Brings Attention to the Transportation Issue

Your Health: Radiation Exposure

Guinn Declares 'The Battle Begins' As He Vetoes Yucca Mountain Site Recommendation

Kenny Guinn declared his historic decision to veto President Bush’s nuclear waste recommendation April 8th as a wake-up call for America — the day when the rest of America will begin to realize that Yucca Mountain is not just a Nevada problem, but a national one that affects every American.

"Let me make one thing crystal clear — Yucca Mountain is not inevitable, and Yucca Mountain is no bargaining chip," Governor Guinn said April 8th in an address at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Tam Alumni Center. "And, so long as I am Governor, it will never become one."

"Yucca Mountain is not safe, it is not suitable," the Governor continued, "and we will expose the Department of Energy’s dirty little secrets about Yucca Mountain."

Governor Guinn departed

Las Vegas for Washington D.C. later that day, where his Notice of Disapproval ("Veto") was filed with both houses of Congress. Never before has a state been given the power to veto a Presidential decision. Congress recognizes that Nevada has a right to an active voice in the selection of a location for the permanent storage of the most dangerous waste generated by mankind. In 1982, Nevada was given the unequivocal right to veto the President’s recommendation that Yucca Mountain become the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

"This veto belongs to each and every one of you who have battled against a project that would be detrimental to the public health and safety of our citizens," Governor Guinn said, "our precious natural resources, and our economy, and to the other 43 states and hundreds of cities and towns in America through which this dangerous waste will be transported."

Governor Guinn declared that the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain Project is based on bad science, law and public policy. In 1987, Congress selected Yucca Mountain as the only site it would study for disposal of this dangerous waste. Notwithstanding that Yucca Mountain is thousands of miles away from 90 percent pf the nation’s 110 nuclear power plants, Congress was persuaded by one simple fact — a population of less than a million and only four legislative representatives.

"The fact that the Yucca Mountain decision was made without any analysis of the transportation risks to the 123 million Americans in states through which this dangerous waste will travel is the dirty little secret," Governor Guinn said.

DOE plans to use Yucca Mountain for the disposal of 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel from throughout the United States and 42 countries.

Citing more than $100 million the nuclear power industry has spent to promote the project, Governor Guinn asked all Nevadans to contribute at least $1 to the Nevada Project Fund, which has recently topped $6 million. To donate, visit http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste or call toll free in Nevada 1-800-366-0990

Source: Office of Governor Kenny Guinn Web Site: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

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Kenny C. Guinn

Governor of Nevada

April 8, 2002

Nevada strongly opposes the designation of Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste disposal because the project is scientifically flawed, fails to conform to numerous laws, and the policy behind it is ever changing and nonsensical. The Department of Energy has so compromised this project through years of mismanagement that Congress should have no confidence in any representation made by DOE about either its purpose or its safety. Nevada is not anti-nuclear and does not oppose nuclear power. Our state is pro-science and pro-common sense.

Because of the state’s longstanding opposition to the Yucca Mountain project, some have accused Nevada of being a not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY, state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nevada has already borne more than its fair share of this nation’s radioactive waste burdens.

During the Cold War, Nevada served as host to hundreds of nuclear weapons tests, most with bombs several times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast. The government misrepresented the risks and impacts of those tests to our citizenry, and many Nevadans were injured as a result. Nearly 300 million curies of toxic radioactive contaminants remain in the ground in our state to this day. We have not forgotten this legacy.

Nevada is also being forced by the Energy Department to play host to the world’s largest low-level and mixed radioactive waste disposal facility, at the Nevada Test Site. DOE plans to use this site for the disposal of hundreds of millions of cubic feet of radioactive and hazardous garbage and contaminated soil from the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. Tens of thousands of shipments of this waste through our state are anticipated.

Once upon a time not long ago, the concept of "environmental equity" would have made it unthinkable, given the sacrifices already imposed on Nevada, that the state would be forced to play host to yet another nuclear waste dump — indeed, the dump to end all dumps. DOE plans to use Yucca Mountain for the disposal of 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel from throughout the United States and 42 other countries. And we know if we permit it to happen, it won’t end there.

But Nevada will not permit it to happen. Not simply because it is the wrong thing to do, at the wrong time, from the standpoint of environmental equity. Even when carrying the load of others, Nevadans will never tire of serving their country for a worthy cause.

We will not permit Yucca Mountain to happen - and it will not happen - because the project is manifestly not a worthy cause. Yucca Mountain is but the latest in a long series of DOE boondoggles - one based on bad science, bad law, and bad public policy. In addition, better, cheaper, and safer alternatives exist. Finally, national security will not be helped, but hindered, by this ill-advised project.

Some say Nevada should acquiesce to the project because the Yucca Mountain repository is now inevitable. Obviously, they fail to understand Nevadans, or the power of the American legal system. I assure you, the only thing inevitable about Yucca Mountain is that it will plot the course of so many other doomed DOE mega-projects.

The state of Nevada will redouble its efforts to bring science and the law back to the nation’s high-level waste program, and to restore sanity to America’s nuclear energy security policy. But we are not alone.

A growing chorus of scientists and independent technical reviewers has voiced grave reservations about the project. These include the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste, the General Accounting Office, the Congressionally-created Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, the National Academy of Sciences, Physics Today, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, among others. A recent national poll concludes that those Americans opposed to Yucca Mountain now equal in number those in favor.

I urge each and every one of you to look carefully at the facts. Yes, Yucca Mountain is the most studied piece of real estate in the world. What the studies starkly concluded, however, has been overshadowed by the mere fact that they occurred. A hundred more years of study will not change the fatally poor geology of Yucca Mountain, or remove the site from an earthquake fault zone. Nor will decades of moving waste across the countryside to Yucca Mountain even dent the amount of spent nuclear fuel stored above ground at nuclear sites throughout America.

We are well beyond the days when Yucca Mountain was simply Nevada’s problem. If the project proceeds, high-level nuclear waste shipments will impact as many as 44 states, 703 counties, and 109 cities with populations of 100,000 or greater, including several major metropolitan areas. Nearly 50 million American citizens reside within three miles of a proposed shipping route. There will be more spent fuel shipments in the first year of Yucca Mountain operations than occurred in the entire history of such shipments in this country. We are in this together.

In short order, Congress will have the prerogative to consider my Notice of Disapproval and, under procedures in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, override it by simple majority vote in both houses, with a signature by the President. I respectfully urge Congress not to take such action. With the proliferation of safe, economical dry storage facilities at reactor sites, we face no spent fuel emergency. Nuclear power plants face no risk of shutdown. We have the time to do this right. And Yucca Mountain is not right.

Nevada deserves better, and so does this nation.

****

For additional information, see Nevada’s Yucca Mountain website at:

http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

The entire text of the Statement of Reasons Supporting the Governor of Nevada’s Notice of Disapproval of the Proposed Yucca Mountain Project is posted on the above website.

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Yucca Mountain Project Gets a New Chief: Senate Confirms Margaret Chu as Director

On March 6 the U. S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Margaret Chu, 56, to direct the Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain Project. She formerly managed the nuclear waste programs at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM.

"I want to enhance the credibility of the Department of Energy and communicate more with all participating parties," Chu said the day following her nomination.

Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-NV) had put a hold on Chu’s nomination in December, saying he was not satisfied with her answers to questions about the Yucca Mountain Project. An unidentified source close to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Reid got something in return for lifting the hold on Chu’s nomination, but the source declined to be more specific.

Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said the senator let Chu’s nomination go through because she can’t hurt Nevada any more than the Bush administration already has. On February 15, President Bush approved the Energy Department’s recommendation of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.

"What Chu could do at this point pales in comparison to what the president did," Naylor said. "But with that said, it might help to have a change in that office. Maybe the scientist in her will kick in once she stumbles over all the potholes in the Yucca Mountain program."

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The Energy Department’s senior manager for Yucca Mountain confirmed March 14th he plans to retire from the government later this spring.

Lake Barrett, 56, has been deputy director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management since 1993, and three times served as acting director for extended periods, most recently for the past 14 months.

Barrett said his decision was cemented when the Senate confirmed Margaret Chu to head the nuclear waste program.

Chu, who was sworn in on March 20th, is a government science manager who has headed the Nuclear Waste Management Program Center at Sandia National Laboratories.

"After an orderly transition to the new director, I intend to retire" perhaps by May, Barrett said.

Barrett confirmed he was leaving after he delivered an annual Yucca Mountain budget presentation to the House energy and water subcommittee. He told panel members it would be his final budget talk.

Barrett helped guide the $7 billion Yucca Mountain project to an endorsement last month by President Bush.

In recent months, however, management of the program has drawn criticism from the General Accounting Office, and members of the presidentially appointed Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board have questioned some of the research conducted by Yucca Mountain scientists.

In challenging the safety of nuclear waste burial in their state, Nevada officials also have targeted Barrett for criticism.

Steve Kraft, head of the high-level nuclear waste program at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said Barrett is "probably one of the most expert managers in the Department of Energy. You don’t see a whole lot of people like Lake working in these programs."

"A lot of people in Nevada say a lot of negative things about the program but Lake Barrett always took that to heart and demanded excellence out of his people and his contractors," Kraft said.

Barrett, a mechanical and nuclear engineer, has been involved in the government’s nuclear waste disposal effort since 1985 except for a three-year period in the early 1990s when he managed the Energy Department’s Rocky Flats site outside Denver.

Before joining the Energy Department, Barrett was a site director for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was among those responsible for cleaning up at the Three Mile Island reactor site, which experienced a partial meltdown in 1979.

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The chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, Representative Don Young, (R-AK) announced March 22 that he will hold a hearing on federal plans to transport high-level radioactive waste across 43 states to Yucca Mountain.

The hearing will provide a chance for Nevada legislators to present their case that transporting 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste cross-country is a dangerous proposition.

Young, Alaska’s only congressman, was attending an outdoors convention in Las Vegas. "If it’s not the right thing to do, then let’s find out," Young stated while dining at a Paris Las Vegas cafe with Representative Jim Gibbons (R-NV) and state Senator Jon Porter (R-Henderson).

Porter said he would testify at the hearing along with other state officials. He stated he believes the Department of Energy has not objectively reviewed the transportation risks and might have underestimated the work involved in upgrading and policing the routes.

In 1987, Young voted in favor of the so-called "Screw Nevada" bill, which left Yucca Mountain as the only site in the country under consideration for the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste repository. But he said during his announcement of the hearing that he will probably vote with Jim Gibbons when the house decides whether to override Governor Guinn’s veto of the site recommendation. Guinn has said he will cast his veto sometime during the first two weeks of April.

Young said the hearing would include perspectives from scientists who are behind the Yucca Mountain Project and who favor the idea of cross-country nuclear waste shipments as opposed to continued storage of spent fuel at reactor sites.

"I’m going to have this hearing and find out what the transportation issues are. Our hope is we’ll have as many witnesses that will give us all sides of the issue," Young said.

Gibbons says the hearing will give Nevada leaders the chance to make a case for transporting the fuel by ship across the Atlantic Ocean for reprocessing at facilities in Europe and Russia. He says he will also advocate converting the type of nuclear fuel used in U. S. reactors from uranium to thorium, which would allow deadly plutonium to be consumed in the energy-producing reaction. Though it is an integral part of Nuclear power in France, reprocessing has been prohibited in the United States since President Carter banned reprocessing in 1977 after discussions with directors of the national laboratories in California and New Mexico.

"If we reprocess our fuel ... we can eliminate proliferating issues and eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain," Gibbons said.

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Americans are evenly divided on their opinion of Yucca Mountain, according to a recent poll that Nevada officials believe will bolster their position in the fight against Yucca Mountain.

A nationwide survey of 1,000 people found 47 percent supporting the nuclear waste project and 47 percent opposing it, but the poll showed the public has concern over the transportation issue.

When the people surveyed were told nuclear waste could be shipped through their state, 61 percent said they were either "somewhat" or "much more likely" to oppose the Yucca Mountain Project.

Representative Shelley Berkley (D-NV) noted the poll runs counter to the assertion made by nuclear industry officials that the majority of the public outside Nevada supports Yucca Mountain. She said the poll confirms that people react negatively to the project based on the transportation issue.

"People understand instinctively that nuclear waste is dangerous, and they don’t want it coming through their cities and towns," Berkley said.

Ipsos Public Affairs, an international polling company, took the poll March 14 to March 17. The firm conducts weekly polls on a variety of topics. In an effort to drum up free publicity, Ipsos routinely attaches a few questions on news topics to its weekly polls and then distributes its results to the media.

The poll has a 3.1 percent margin of error.

Ipsos vice president Trent Ross said that Nevada officials have a "fairly effective" argument in stressing the dangers of shipping nuclear waste, but stressing risks to groundwater is also a persuasive argument.

The Ipsos poll shows that a public information campaign is needed, according to Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Senator Harry Reid (D-NV).

Reid and Senator John Ensign (R-NV), have discussed with Governor Kenny Guinn the possibility of calling a special session of the Nevada legislature to spend as much as $10 million on the fight against Yucca Mountain. The money would fund a public relations push that would include television commercials and a grassroots campaign.

Officials from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry’s lobbying arm, declined comment on the poll. NEI has done polling on the issue in the past, officials said, but has not asked about Yucca Mountain in the last few years.

The Ipsos pollsters made six statements about Yucca Mountain and recorded the following responses:

"Storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain could lead to groundwater contamination." (14 percent said they supported Yucca mountain after this statement; 69 percent opposed)

"Nuclear waste would be transported to Yucca Mountain from storage sites all over the United States, which could mean that nuclear waste would be transported through your state." (31 percent supported; 61 percent opposed)

"The mountain is located just 90 miles from Las Vegas." (28 percent supported; 56 percent opposed)

"Scientists say that Yucca Mountain’s very dry climate, less than six inches of rainfall a year, and its extremely deep water table make Yucca Mountain a good choice for a national storage facility." (63 percent supported Yucca after this statement; 30 percent opposed)

Scientists say the rock will keep the waste sufficiently isolated for thousands of years so that the radioactive material will pose about the same risk or less risk of health effects to the public as that of unmined uranium ore." (62 percent supported; 29 percent opposed)

"Some people say that it is better to have one central storage facility for nuclear waste rather than storing it in numerous facilities as is the current case." (59 percent supported; 32 percent opposed).

Source: Benjamin Grove in the Las Vegas Sun, 3-26-02

The Ipsos poll surveyed 1,000 people nationwide selected by computer using a random digit dial, polsters said.

•     The poll found men, whites and Republicans tend to favor Yucca Mountain.

•     Fifty-eight percent of men favor Yucca Mountain and 58 percent of women oppose it.

•     Fifty percent of whites favor the project while 35 percent of minorities do.

•     Sixty-five percent of Republicans support Yucca with 29 percent opposed.

•     36 percent of Democrats support it, with 59 percent opposed.

•     29 percent of Independents support it with 59 percent opposed.

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NRC Licensing Board to Hold Hearings in Utah

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold formal evidentiary hearings in Salt Lake City beginning Monday, April 8th, and continuing for over a month on the application of Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C. to build and operate an independent spent fuel storage installation on the reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, about 60 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. In addition, the Board is providing an opportunity for members of the public to make brief oral statements on April 8th in Salt Lake City and on April 26th in Tooele, Utah.

During the formal sessions of the hearings, the Licensing Board will receive testimony and exhibits from the parties and allow them to cross-examine witnesses. A schedule of the locations, times and issues to be covered for each hearing session is on the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/meeting-schedule.html# ASLB. The sessions are open to public observation, but participation will be limited to those organizations that have been admitted as formal parties to the proceeding. Those parties are the applicant, Private Fuel Storage; the NRC staff; the State of Utah; the Skull Valley Band; Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia; Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

The formal hearings will cover four issues:

Contentions that hazards from military aircraft and other operations near the area have not been adequately considered.

Questions about the ability of the facility to withstand possible earthquakes.

Potential contamination of groundwater from non-radiological waste.

Questions about whether the Environmental Impact Statement adequately addresses alternatives to the placement of the proposed connection railway to the facility.

Members of the Licensing Board who will preside over both the formal hearing and the limited appearance sessions are Michael C. Farrar, Chairman; Jerry R. Kline; and Peter S. Lam. Judge G. Paul Bollwerk, III, whose Board has retained jurisdiction over part of the proceeding, will be in attendance on the opening day to hear the limited appearance statements.

The deadline for requesting to make an "Oral Limited Appearance Statement" was April 1. However, if time permits, those who have not submitted requests in writing will be allowed to speak. In order to accommodate as many speakers as possible, time for each statement will be limited to three minutes.

A recorded message providing instructions for making a limited appearance is available at (301) 415-5036. This phone line will contain an updated hearing schedule after the hearings begin.

Security screening at all hearings and limited appearance sessions will be strict. Attendees are advised to arrive early so that all may pass through a security screening checkpoint before the hearings get underway.

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 Nevadan’s opinions differed last week on whether the April 3rd nuclear waste episode of "The West Wing" lived up to its hype, but the show drew an immediate and angry reaction from companies that transport nuclear materials.

Officials from two nuclear transportation firms said last Thursday they are inviting transport companies, emergency preparedness and security officials to join a coalition to combat a Nevada-led "disinformation campaign" about shipment safety.

They said "The West Wing" was the final straw.

"This film might as well have been produced in Las Vegas. It is part of a calculated campaign being waged by opponents of Yucca Mountain," said David Blee, a representative of Atlanta-based NAC International.

At a news conference, Blee and Jack Edlow, president of Edlow International, dissected a videotaped portion of "The West Wing" episode for inaccuracies.

Industry officials said Edlow International and NAC International are among companies expected to bid on contracts to handle nuclear waste shipments to the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain.

"We want policy-makers and the public to have an opportunity to hear from people who really know what they’re talking about rather than guys like Martin Sheen who pretend to be things," Edlow said.

Sheen portrays President Josiah Bartlet in "The West Wing." At points in the show, he and other characters seemed to be speaking from an anti-Yucca script. Near the program’s conclusion, Sheen’s character delivers a commentary on nuclear waste cask safety.

"We pack this stuff in 2 inches of stainless steel, 4 inches of lead," he said. "We’ve rammed it with trains and dropped it from helicopters and it still isn’t going to protect us from the thing we haven’t thought of."

Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary in the Clinton White House, was credited with forming the story in which "The West Wing" fictional White House staff learns that a truck carrying spent uranium fuel has crashed in a tunnel in Idaho.

"We’ll take any of the free media," Senator John Ensign, (R-NV) said after viewing the program. "They said all the right things, but because it was one of the subplots, I don’t think it had nearly as much effect. It was a little bit disappointing.

Representative Shelley Berkley, (D-NV) said she was satisfied. "It got the message across in a very soft way, it was woven into the fabric of the show," she said.

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Radioactive materials that decay spontaneously produce ionizing radiation, which has sufficient energy to strip away electrons from atoms (creating two charged ions) or to break some chemical bonds. Any living tissue in the human body can be damaged by ionizing radiation. The body attempts to repair the damage, but sometimes the damage is too severe or widespread, or mistakes are made in the natural repair process. The most common forms of ionizing radiation are alpha and beta particles, or gamma and X-rays.

In general, the amount and duration of radiation exposure affects the severity or type of health effect. There are two broad categories of health effects: stochastic and non-stochastic.

Stochastic effects are associated with long-term, low level (chronic) exposure to radiation ("Stochastic" refers to the likelihood that something will happen.) Increased levels of exposure make these health effects more likely to occur, but do not influence the type or severity of the effect.

Cancer is considered by most people the primary health effect from radiation exposure. Simply put, cancer is the uncontrolled growth of cells. Ordinarily, natural processes control the rate at which cells grow and replace themselves. They also control the body’s processes for repairing or replacing damaged tissue. Damage occurring at the cellular or molecular level can disrupt the control processes thereby permitting the uncontrolled growth of cells—cancer. This is why ionizing radiation’s ability to break chemical bonds in atoms and molecules makes it such a potent carcinogen.

Other stochastic effects also occur. Radiation can cause changes in DNA, the "blueprints" that ensure cell repair and replacement produces a perfect copy of the original cell. Changes in DNA are called mutations.

Sometimes the body fails to repair these mutations or even creates mutations during repair. The mutations can be teratogenic or genetic. Teratogenic mutations affect only the individual who was exposed. Genetic mutations are passed on to offspring.

Non-stochastic effects appear in cases of exposure to high levels of radiation and become more severe as the exposure increases. Short-term, high-level exposure is referred to as "acute" exposure.

Many non-cancerous health effects of radiation are non-stochastic. Unlike cancer, health effects from "acute" exposure to radiation usually appear quickly. Acute health effects include burns and radiation sickness. Radiation sickness is also called "radiation poisoning." It can cause premature aging or even death. If the dose is fatal, death usually occurs within two months. The symptoms of radiation sickness include: nausea, weakness, hair loss, skin burns or diminished organ function.

Medical patients receiving radiation treatments often experience acute effects because they are receiving

relatively high "bursts" of radiation during treatment.

There is no firm basis for setting a "safe" level of exposure above background for stochastic effects. Many sources emit radiation that is well below natural background levels. This makes it extremely difficult to isolate its tochastic effects.

Some scientists assert that low levels of radiation are beneficial to health (this idea is known as hormesis).

There do appear to be threshold exposures for the various non-stochastic effects, however. The accompanying chart provides examples.

Exposure (rem)	Health Effect	Time to Onset
	radiation burns become more severe as the exposure increases
5-10	changes in blood chemistry
50	nausea	hours
	damage to bone marrow
	fatigue
	hair loss	2-3 weeks
	death from fatal doses	within 2 months
1,000	destruction of intestinal lining
	internal bleeding
	death	1-2 weeks
2,000	damage to central nervous system
	loss of consciousness	minutes
	death	hours to days

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