And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 10:32:35 EST >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 226 >Mailing-List: list [EMAIL PROTECTED]; contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Delivered-To: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [DOEWatch] PLAN TO BURY NUCLEAR WASTE IN NEVADA MOVES FORWARD > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > PLAN TO BURY NUCLEAR WASTE IN NEVADA MOVES FORWARD > New York Times -- Saturday, December 19, 1998 > by Matthew L. Wald > > WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department reported Friday that it had found "no >show stoppers" so far to block its plan to bury much of the United States' >nuclear waste in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas and that it was on >schedule to make a formal recommendation to the president by 2001. > In what it called its "viability assessment" released Friday, however, the >department did identify major gaps in its knowledge of the geology of the >site, Yucca Mountain. But officials promised to answer questions raised by >scientists outside the department about water in the mountain, the most >probable means by which radioactive contamination could escape beyond the >site. > The energy secretary, Bill Richardson, said in a telephone interview, "The >fact that no show stoppers have been identified is a step forward." > "We are admitting additional work is needed," Richardson added, "but it's >in the national interest to proceed forward." > Opponents of the plan, however, say that enough problems with Yucca >Mountain are known to disqualify it as a nuclear-waste repository. A >coalition of 219 environmental organizations submitted a petition to the >agency last month saying that even in the Nevada desert, rain will percolate >through the mountain in a few decades, picking up radioactive material on >the way. > Then, environmentalists argue, the water will travel horizontally to wells >beyond the site over hundreds of years, yet quickly enough to deliver the >materials while they are still dangerously radioactive. > A statement from Public Citizen, the organization founded by Ralph Nader >that helped organize the 219 groups, said, "We object to the content of the >report for its optimistic conclusions." > But Ernest Moniz, the energy undersecretary, said one of the gaps in >knowledge was how fast water would move underground, and how much it would >dilute any radioactive contaminants. The estimates in the report might be >"too conservative" or too pessimistic, he said. > The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent federal agency, is >supposed to decide whether to grant a license for construction of the >repository, based on criteria set by the Environmental Protection Agency. >The EPA, however, has not yet set rules, one of the reasons the process is >uncertain. > The report included, for the first time, a preliminary design for the >proposed repository on the edge of the Nevada Test Site where the Energy >Department used to explode nuclear bombs. The department, under tremendous >pressure because it missed a deadline of February 1998 to begin accepting >waste from nuclear-powered reactors, hopes to open a repository in 2010, >with waste being loaded until 2033. > The documents released Friday anticipated sealing the repository in 2116, >but raised the possibility of keeping the tunnels through the mountain open >for 300 years, until 2316, to ensure that the radioactive material was not >leaking. > The department said it would cost $18.7 billion to license and build the >repository and to load it with more than 70,000 tons of waste from power >plants and bomb factories. The costs in 1998 dollars, including expenses >since 1983 and 100 years of monitoring, would be $43 billion, the department >said. > The money would come from a tenth-of-a-cent-per-kilowatt-hour charge that >the department collects from nuclear utilities, which should be enough to >pay for the whole program, officials said Friday. But in exchange for the >fee, the department was supposed to have begun accepting wastes last >February; now it faces penalties for being late, under contracts it signed >with utility companies. > The period of maximum exposure, said the report, is after 300,000 years. >At that point, the report estimated, doses to people drinking from wells 12 >miles away would be about 300 millirem a year, which would be about equal to >present-day radiation from natural sources. > That would be 10 to 20 times higher than the limits now being discussed, >but no one has decided yet whether radiation-protection standards should >have to extend so far into the future. The debate over Yucca Mountain may >focus on a more immediate future, of a few thousand years. > The viability assessment on the Yucca Mountain Project is available on the >Web at http://domino.ymp.gov/va/va.nsf/. > >========================================================== > >Comments: > > Most folks around nuke plants know the bone dose is very important and >metals like uranium and plutonium migrate. Very low doses of many heavy >metals and low level radiations as from uranium highly affect the immune >health. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription >to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and >select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. > <<<<=-=-=FREE LEONARD PELTIER=-=-=>>>> If you think you are too small to make a difference; try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito.... African Proverb <<<<=-=http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ =-=>>>> PASS THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW.... Please Check it before you send it: http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm
