Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mtn. Clears Another Hurdle
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established final radiation standards for the proposed spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The EPA has determined that the final standards (pdf) for the planned Yucca Mountain high-level waste disposal facility are “fully protective of human health” and the repository will not be allowed to open unless it meets these requirements. >>More on Yucca Mountain at Green Options
Bipartisan opposition to EPA decision
The Las Vegas Sun reports Nevada’s two senators blasted the proposed rules for radiation protection because they were based on flawed science that put millions of people at risk. In a show of a state-based bipartisan solidarity both Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) quickly reacted to the decision.
“Instead of warring against science, I side with Nevadans and experts who support safe and attainable solutions to our nation’s nuclear waste,” said Reid.
The Senate Majority Leader said he will be working with Ensign to keep nuclear waste on-site at the power plants in “secure dry cask storage containers that are approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. which he said was a safer, more cost-effective, long-term solution to the waste problem.
Reid’s Republican colleague voiced similar concern with decision. Senator John Ensign said, “… the EPA has decided to disregard science and the health and safety of Nevadans to push this nuclear waste dump further into action. Instead of trying to dismiss the risks of Yucca Mountain, our country should be moving towards safe on-site nuclear waste storage.”
Historically, the political debates on natural resources use and federal lands in the American West are something that ideologically diverse lawmakers will agree on. Mostly because it can be political suicide to do otherwise.
Regardless of the Senate delegation of Nevada’s opposition to this final decision, the next step in the regulatory maze will be at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) which must now issue licensing regulations for Yucca Mountain that implement EPA’s rule, and include other technical requirements NRC will use in making a decision on whether Yucca Mountain is safe to open.
The government last June asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build the underground dump 90 miles from Las Vegas. The government hopes the site will be ready to take nuclear waste from commercial reactors by 2020.
The final Yucca radiation standards will:
- Retain the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after disposal.
- Establish a dose limit of 100 millirem annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years.
- Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion of the waste packages to safely contain the waste during the 1 million-year period.
- Be consistent with the recommendations of the NAS by establishing a radiological protection standard for this facility at the time of peak dose up to 1 million years after disposal.
The average annual radiation exposure from both naturally occurring radiation such as radon and ultraviolet radiation from the sun and other sources such as X-rays is 360 millirems a year, according to the EPA.
Image credit: Wolfgang Staudt via flickr under a Creative Commons License
