Court OKs Nevada Site for Nuclear Waste Dump

An appeals court on Friday upheld the government’s decision to single out Nevada as the site of a nuclear waste dump but ruled that the federal plan did not go far enough to protect people from potential radiation beyond 10,000 years in the future.

While the court dismissed virtually all of the arguments raised by Nevada and environmentalists against the Yucca Mountain project, its rejection of the radiation standard raised new questions about whether the waste repository would be built -- or at least meet its target of 2010 to begin operation.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was confident the radiation exposure standard could be resolved. He said Friday’s court ruling had “dismissed all challenges to the site selection of Yucca Mountain” and that the project, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was moving forward.

But lawyers for Nevada and environmental groups said the court’s rejection of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed radiation exposure limits could doom the project.

“We think we put a stake through the heart of this project,” said Joe Egan, a lawyer for Nevada in the Yucca Mountain litigation.

Antonio Rossmann, who argued the EPA radiation issue before the court on behalf of the state, called it “the first domino” on which the project could fall, depending on whether it was resolved.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected Nevada’s claims that it was unconstitutional to single out the state for a national nuclear waste site.

But a senior Energy Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the court’s rejection of the radiation standard -- as well as recent budget problems for the project in Congress -- could cause delays.

The three-judge panel said the EPA acted illegally when it limited the radiation exposure requirements to 10,000 years into the future when Congress directed the agency to develop a rule consistent with recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences.

Contrary to agency’s interpretation, a 1995 academy report found “no scientific basis for limiting the time period of the individual risk standard to 10,000 years.” The report said the standard should be designed to protect people whenever the waste was at its highest danger.

Scientists agree that some radionuclides to be kept at the site would reach their peak of danger well beyond 10,000 years. But the agency maintained that computer models for any time beyond that are unreliable and essentially useless.

“The EPA wholly rejected the academy’s recommendations,” the judges wrote.

They said the agency must either issue a revised standard consistent with the academy’s findings or get Congress to give it authority to deviate from the academy’s recommendations.

The government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in canisters at Yucca Mountain.