Nye residents, officials offer mixed views on Yucca repository

AMARGOSA VALLEY - Nye County residents and officials are still divided on possible safety and environmental impacts of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, five years after the project was abandoned.

Several dozen residents and authorities, who attended a public meeting Thursday night in Amargosa Valley, offered mixed views on a recent report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that concluded a nuclear waste repository that was to be located less that 20 miles from Amargosa would yield "only a negligible increase" in health risks from radioactive particles that might leak into groundwater.

While the project could boost the cash-strapped Nye County that has been involved in the license application process since the site was approved by the U.S. Congress in 2002, some expressed skepticism about its safety.

Amy Noel, general manager of Tecopa Hot Springs Resort, said the potential contamination from the repository would impact local eco-tourism, which has been booming for the last couple of years.

"It seems like a really bad idea, I know this is about this groundwater study, but to be transporting nuclear waste across the country to one of the only places that doesn't produce (it), it is bothersome," Noel said.

Others were less critical of the idea. Bruce Crater, an Amargosa resident, said he was hoping the project was going to go through.

"I would much rather have that material here at Yucca Mountain, 11 miles from where I live, 1,000 feet underground secure, because it's on a site where no one is going to go in there and bother with the material that's there," Crater said. "They can't shoot it, they can't do anything that they do on these other sites."

The licensing process for the project was stopped when the Obama administration ceased federal funding for the site in 2011 through amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act. However, a 2013 ruling of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the regulatory commission should proceed with license hearings.

Robert Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the Department of Energy would need more than $1.6 billion for the licensing process. Additionally, the licensing board would have to go through 300 contentions challenging the repository that had been filed by various parties, including several of the tribal nations.

"As it stands now, we think the NRC is only going to have a million or two, maybe less than a $1 million dollars left when they finish this environmental impact statement supplement," he said, adding the state is committed to opposing the project in various venues.

A statement from Gov. Brian Sandoval delivered by Halstead at the meeting called for focusing time and resources on "workable, forward-looking solutions" to the U.S. nuclear waste problems rather than the NRC Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding.

Nye County Commissioner Dan Schinhofen didn't offer comments on the environmental impact statement, but said Nye County will provide limited comments after reviewing the document.

"We just want the science to be heard and we wish the governor would come along with us and have an open mind," Schinhofen said.

Halstead said the state will submit written comments addressing the NRC's evaluation of groundwater, health impact, computer models and data by Nov. 20. He also added the NRC study that was based on groundwork the DOE performed when it had applied for a repository license in 2008 failed to consider some of the new developments.

"Obviously, that's a big issue for the state of Nevada, for the Nye County, the other counties, the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe as to what kind of funds it would take for us to represent our interests," he said. "But what I want to say is that the state, because it is opposed to the Yucca Mountain proposal, we think it's an unsafe site, and we think that the plan that is in DOE's license application and in their environmental impact statement is unworkable."

The NRC staff's draft supplement to the DOE's environmental impact statement for a proposed radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain is available on the NRC's website. Comments can be submitted until Nov. 20.