Nevada Report Finds Flaws in U.S. Plan for Nuclear Dump

An overdue report issued Thursday by the state Nuclear Waste Project Office says there are major flaws in the federal Department of Energy’s plans for a high-level nuclear dump in Nevada.

Bob Loux, executive director of the state office, said in the two-volume, 750-page report to the Energy Department that the federal agency failed to recognize the geologic complexity and apparent instability of the site at Yucca Mountain.

Loux also said the department decided that careful study of the geology and hydrology of the south-central Nevada site “is not necessary, nor perhaps desirable.”

Instead, he said the federal agency assumes Yucca Mountain is suitable and ignores the need for a full study of “potential disqualifying conditions long recognized to exist at the site, such as recent volcanism and faulting.”

In urging a re-examination of the site review process to date, Loux added that the Energy Department failed to develop and manage a required scientific program that would ensure the best site is picked for the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump.

Loux, whose boss, Gov. Dick Bryan, is adamantly opposed to a Department of Energy waste repository in Nevada, also said his review team was able to analyze the department’s 10,000-page site characterization plan despite roadblocks caused by the federal government.

Loux said the Energy Department draft plan was issued in January and the department then cut off the state’s funding for its review efforts. That resulted in the state reviewers missing a June 30 deadline, and Loux said the department now says his report won’t be considered in the final federal plan to be released at the end of the year.