The 10,000-Year Warranty

If diamonds are forever, deadly radioactive nuclear waste cannot be far behind. For this reason, the Bush administration is wrong to rush approval of a high-level nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Congress has stipulated that the dump must keep radioactivity from leaking into the air or ground water supplies for at least 10,000 years. There is no certainty that Yucca Mountain will fulfill that goal.

There are at least two reasons for the administration’s impatience. First, it is concerned--appropriately--about the security of the used fuel rods that are being stored at 72 nuclear plants throughout the United States. In theory, terrorists could easily steal used fuel rods for fabrication of a radioactivity weapon. But even if Yucca Mountain is accelerated, it will be at least several years before plants can begin moving rods there.

Secondly, the administration is promoting a revival of nuclear power for generation of electricity as a “major component of our national energy policy.” By congressional decree, no new nuclear plants can be licensed until a permanent waste disposal site is certified. It may be that new-generation reactors will prove safer than the old ones, possibly reducing the risk of accidents and terrorist assault to acceptable levels. But it’s uncertain the American public is ready to accept that premise, or that the need for new electric power plants is that urgent.

In November, the Department of Energy changed the rules for approving Yucca Mountain by declaring it was no longer necessary to prove that the natural geology of the mountain alone was sufficient to contain radioactivity. Rather, the test could be met by a combination of advanced storage containers and the barrier of the mountain rock. Energy officials claimed the new rule complies with rigorous environmental standards set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nevada officials argued that the administration merely is lowering the bar to win quicker approval of the site over Nevada’s adamant opposition. Nevada has sued to stop the rule. We support that effort.

Now, the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigatory arm, is urging that the Yucca Mountain decision be postponed until hundreds of outstanding issues are resolved by technical and scientific experts. The GAO draft report quoted the Energy Department’s own private contractor as saying the compilation of the needed research and cost estimates will take years to complete. The administration wants to open the depository by 2010.

The government has spent $8 billion studying Yucca Mountain over the past 20 years. Recent studies have indicated that earthquake faults and areas of loose rock might even facilitate the leakage of radioactivity into the atmosphere or aquifers. There’s no question the nation needs a nuclear disposal site. But it must be safe--almost forever.