Nuclear Dump Delayed Till 2003

WASHINGTON — The government announced today that it will delay until the 21st Century the opening of the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump, which would hold spent fuel from 100 commercial nuclear plants for 10,000 years.

The Energy Department said the postponement of the dump’s opening, from 1998 until 2003, was decided upon because the department said it could not meet its schedule. The department has been studying three Western sites--Hanford, Wash.; Yucca Mountain, Nev., and Deaf Smith County, Tex.--as possible locations for the $100-billion dump. The final choice was to have been named in 1991.