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Nuclear Waste: Yucca Shipments Need More Planning, Expert Says The planned long-term nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada should be put on hold until researchers can better examine how to ship waste to the site, former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said yesterday (see GSN, May 17). Before the repository is established, officials should create a national transportation plan for waste shipments and engineers should improve testing of the shipping casks themselves, Hull said. “One of the things that immediately got my attention after (the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks) is the potential of each one of these casks to be a dirty bomb,” Hall said. Hull now acts as a paid consultant for Nevada, which opposes the Yucca Mountain plan, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The U.S. Energy Department and the nuclear energy industry, however, have said there are no reasons for any further delay in the Yucca Mountain plan. Shipments to the repository would not begin until 2010 at the earliest, when the facility is scheduled to be operational, Energy Department and nuclear industry representatives said. “The opponents of Yucca Mountain paid for that opinion (by Hall), and I’m sure they are happy with it,” said Energy spokesman Joe Davis. “Maybe they should pay somebody now to read the law and regulations governing repository selection and transportation of nuclear waste.” Energy, the Transportation Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state agencies will spend the next several years before the repository is scheduled to open developing a waste shipment transportation plan, Davis said (Jeff Nesmith, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 22). Senate Scene Meanwhile, Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) have been quietly working behind the scenes to convince other senators to remain at least publicly undecided on whether they will support the Yucca Mountain plan, according to CongressDaily. The Senate is expected to vote in July on a resolution that would override Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn’s veto of the Yucca Mountain site. The House of Representatives has already passed an identical resolution (see GSN, May 9). In the last few months, Reid and Ensign have met with almost every other senator to outline their argument against the Yucca Mountain plan, CongressDaily reported. Through their efforts, the two have persuaded many senators to at least refrain from declaring how they plan to vote, according to CongressDaily. “We’ve gotten a lot of people into the undecided category,” Ensign said. So far, 32 senators have said they are undecided on the Yucca Mountain repository issue, according to a CongressDaily survey. Many of those 32 senators, however, have previously supported similar legislation. Of the remaining senators, 48 support the plan and 19 oppose it, according to the survey (Brody Mullins, CongressDaily, May 22).
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