Yucca Mountain Project
Since the beginning of the nuclear age, the nuclear establishment has tried to find a solution to the problem of long-lived high-level nuclear waste. The waste is the deadly byproduct of nuclear weapons development and nuclear power plants. High-level waste is highly toxic and radioactive and will remain so for many hundreds of thousands of years. Early on, there were ideas to dump it on a remote desert island, sink it to the bottom of the ocean, or even ship the waste into Sun. These ideas were quickly dismissed as too costly and highly dangerous. Since at least the late 1950s, there has been a consensus within the scientific community that the best option or, really, the "least-worst" option is to build a geologically based repository to isolate the waste for as long as possible. It wasn't until 1982 when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was passed that the United States decided to make this the official policy of the United States.
Unfortunately, the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada was not chosen for scientific reasons. The history of project reveals that Nevada was chosen because it was, at the time, a weak political state and could offer little resistance to the plan. Furthermore, almost every time clear and concrete evidence emerges that the Yucca Site is unsuitable for a geologic repository, the Federal Government simply changes the rules to make it work.
HEAL Utah works with our allies in Nevada and elsewhere to stop the Yucca Mountain Project and instead work for a viable alternative that is based on sound science. That alternative would likely still be a geologic repository but would be based on predetermined criteria, not on how politically easy it can be achieved.
History
in 1982, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was passed. It mandated that high-level nuclear waste would be buried in a geoligc repository to isolate the waste for as long as possible. This decision was in-line with the international scientific consensus that remains today. The act also mandated that there would be two sites; one in the east and one in the west, in order to have regional equity. In 1984, the DOE selected ten locations in six states for consideration as potential repository sites. The ten sites were later reduced to Hanford, Washington; Deaf Smith County, Texas; and Yucca Mountain. In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain. This decision came largely from strong pressure from eastern states eager to get rid of their wastes and was in spite of strong evidence showing Yucca Mountain's unsuitability as a repository. Nevadans were understandably furious and termed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act the "Screw Nevada" bill.
Since 1987, the project has been mired in legal, political, and budgetary delays that has pushed back any opening date indefinitely. In fact, the Department of Energy has not yet received a license to build and operate the facility and the radiation dose standard for Yucca Mountain established by the Environmental Protection Agency was thrown out in Federal court in 2004 because it was seen as inadequate at protecting public health.
The DOE still intends to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the summer of 2008 but this is highly unlikely due to budget cuts and massive opposition by the State of Nevada.
