The Shundahai Network :A Decade of Resistance

By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

• Yucca Mountain: Nuclear Waste in Nevada

WASHINGTON -- Deep in a public database, amid seemingly endless pages of almost indecipherable technical discussions of the Yucca Mountain repository, there is this: an e-mailed photo of a carved Halloween pumpkin "vomiting" seeds and pulp into a toilet.

Elsewhere on the Web network are e-mails from employees sharing recipes and restaurant menus, off-color jokes, movie schedules for the Suncoast, personal musings and prayers.

A 1999 message circulated among a half dozen women discussed an Ann Landers column comparing the merits of husbands who are geologists with those of husbands who are engineers.

"He keeps my truck purring! what more can you ask?" wrote an engineer's wife.

One from December 1998 is a cartoon of Santa Claus squatting over a chimney, drawers dropped, with the caption, "How to Tell You've Been Really Bad."

In preparation for licensing, screening software at the Department of Energy combed through voluminous documents that were gathered over years within the computers of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program.

As they steered 3.5 million items into an Internet database, it was perhaps inevitable that somebody's photo of their baby dressed in a cable-knit sweater and the theme lyrics to the old "Green Acres" TV show would be moved along with more pertinent, but less interesting, research material.

Attorneys for the state of Nevada gathered samples and sent them to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month, complaining that the DOE database was "enormously bloated."

They said the network is cluttered with duplicates, clearly obsolete content and empty e-mails, plus messages like the one containing the joke about the woman who ties a ribbon around the testicles of her snoring dog.

"Some of this is pretty creative stuff," said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Loux's attorneys and technicians regularly search the database as they prepare legal challenges to the repository.

DOE spokesman Allen Benson said some nonrelevant e-mails mistakenly were vacuumed into the database, which is called the Licensing Support Network, or LSN.

"People use e-mails for all kinds of things, and sometimes they simply misclassify it," Benson said. "I have seen e-mails where people say, 'Are you available for lunch?'"

Benson said more than 20 million e-mails were reviewed.

"It doesn't surprise me when you are dealing with millions of e-mails that some of those would find their way onto the LSN," Benson said.

As far as content on the personal missives, Benson said, "Some were clearly included that should not have been."

The database, found at www.lsnnet.gov, was set up for DOE to disclose the scientific studies, data analyses and other technical material behind its application to build a nuclear waste complex at the Nevada site.

Its users mainly are stakeholders such as the state of Nevada, the Nuclear Energy Institute and environmental groups that will play major roles when the proposed repository's safety will be debated before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

E-mails have been a sore spot for Yucca managers since 2004, when it was discovered that several U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists had sent electronic messages suggesting they were falsifying quality assurance documentation of their research.

The allegations sparked a controversy within the Energy Department and on Capitol Hill. DOE spent several years and $25.6 million on investigations of the hydrologists and the work they conducted.

In an effort to rebuild confidence, the Energy Department commissioned Sandia National Laboratories to rebuild portions of the hydrology research.

Maynard Brusman, a workplace psychologist from San Francisco, said personal e-mail in the office is common but sometimes disclosures are embarrassing in offices where public perception is a valued commodity.

"It creates a perception that someone is not at the wheel, that something is not really right," Brusman said. "Someone could wonder if they are paying attention and focusing."

Contact Steve Tetreault at stetreault @stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.

Separating Yucca Mountain facts from fiction

Bob Loux
For the Appeal
December 27, 2007, 4:01 AM

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As someone who has been intimately involved with the Yucca Mountain project and Nevada's role in it since 1984, I am compelled to comment on Chuck Muth's recent article, "Should we allow Yucca for a mountain of cash?"

The simple, unglamorous truth is that there have never been any large sums of money or outlandish benefits to be had for going along with Yucca Mountain. You've heard about "urban legends" - fictitious stories that float around on the Internet and develop whole cadres of gullible believers? Well, these stories about all of the great things Nevada has been offered to quit fighting Yucca Mountain are nuclear industry "urban legends."

It's the U.S. Congress that would have to pay for any benefits awarded to Nevada for the repository, and in the over 20 years I've been involved in the issue, there has never been any money. Even if there were (and assuming Nevada were in a position to bargain for it - meaning that the Yucca site was really a safe one, which it isn't), there is no way to hold future Congresses and future Administrations to whatever deal might be cut.

The reality is that promises of largesse and pie-in-the-sky benefits serve only one purpose - to get Nevada to drop its opposition to Yucca Mountain and agree to negotiate. Once that happens, the state will have forfeited any chance it has to stop this dangerous project.

That's exactly the situation the nuclear industry and Congress would like to put Nevada in: Get the state to blink and agree to negotiate, recognizing that once Nevada makes such a concession, the ball game is over.

But the most important reason why Nevada can never negotiate for Yucca Mountain is the fact that the proposed repository site cannot and will not isolate deadly nuclear waste from people and the environment for the time required. From the very beginning of this project back in the early 1980s, Nevada has consistently set forth one condition for DOE and the feds to meet in selecting a repository location: It must be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the chosen site would be able to isolate the waste and be benign in its effects on people and the environment.

DOE's own data shows that Yucca Mountain site is so porous that the mountain contributes almost nothing to waste isolation. DOE relies almost exclusively on a system of 'Rube Goldberg' engineering fixes, the most outlandish of which are waste disposal containers that must last for at least 1,000,000 years! Never mind that Nevada and independent scientists who have studied the material these magic containers are to be made from have shown conclusively that they will corrode in a matter of just a few hundred years, or less.

The question that should be asked is not why Nevada hasn't fallen for nonsensical proposals like Mr. Muth's, but just what price can and should Nevada's leaders put on agreeing to accept a facility that they know will fail and eventually cause great damage to the environment and to public health and safety for future generations of Nevadans and Californians. What's the going price these days for an ecosystem contaminated by radioactivity? What price compensates future residents, farmers and others in Amargosa Valley for a contaminated aquifer that will make the area unlivable? The answer, of course, is that no amount of so-called benefits could ever compensate for such folly.



• Robert Loux is executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state agency responsible for overseeing the Yucca Mountain project.

URGENT ACTION ALERT!! DEADLINE APPROACHING!
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, SACRED TO THE SHOSHONE & MAJOR FAULT ZONE, IN
IMMINENT DANGER!
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY MOVES PLANS FORWARD TO TURN YUCCA MOUNTAIN INTO
NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY.
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD DEADLINE JANUARY 10, 2008.

Public hearings have not been well attended, statements mostly in
favor of the plan to put all of the nuclear waste in the country in
this one sacred place. Activists were told that if we do not go on
record with a statement, we will have no legal recourse later on.
Local papers & media spin have recently stated that opposition to the
nuke dump had dropped of since the passing of Corbin Harney. The
nuclear reps are confident to the point of acting like it's a done
deal.  WE KNOW THAT'S NOT TRUE! LETS PROVE THEM WRONG! TAKE ACTION &
MAKE YOUR COMMENT NOW!!

 "The eyes of the elders are on us.  The fate of the unborn is
rolling toward the cliff, the voice of Corbin Harney is ringing in my
ears, "It's on your shoulders now...".   Info from Bear Dyken.
mdyken@goldrush.com.

Yucca Mountain is sacred to the Shoshone as an herb gathering site,

H
ME: Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth www.h-o-m-e.org Breaking the Silence of Nuclear Denial
H
ME Talking Points for Yucca Mountain
10/07 Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements
There are actually 3 draft NEPA documents that DOE has issued for review and comment. One is a supplement
to the 2002 Yucca Mountain final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The other two are combined in one
document dealing with (a) the evaluation of potential rail corridors to Yucca Mountain and (b) the actual
selection of a rail alignment within the proposed Caliente corridor.
The Draft Repository SEIS
Site Characteristics

It is isolated from concentrations of human population and activity. Pahrump and Las Vegas NV are among
the fastest growing populations in the U.S. Amargosa Valley, at the base of the mountain is home the
State’s largest dairy, providing milk all the way to Los Angeles. Amargosa Valley shares the aquifer with
Yucca Mt.

It is on land controlled by the Federal Government. Some of the land is controlled by the U.S. Air Force
and all of it is within the treaty lands of the Western Shoshone nation, ratified by Congress in 1863 and
recently upheld by the UN Committee to End Racial Discrimination, naming the Yucca Mt. Project as part
of ongoing human rights violation against the Western Shoshone.

Yucca Mountain is in one of the most arid regions in the U.S. When rain does come, it is often in flash
floods that travel rapidly. Any escaping radionuclides that reach the surface can travel down the Amargosa
River channel. Climate conditions also appear to be changing rapidly and a high-level nuclear waste
repository must be able to isolate the waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Throughout the lifetime of
the waste, the region is expected to experience future climate cycles that would include ice ages and wetter
conditions.

Groundwater beneath Yucca Mountain flows into a “closed” hydrogeologic basin This” closed basin”
covers thousands of square miles, and is inhabited by many communities, the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, and
Death Valley National Park, visited by nearly 1 million visitors a year, all of whom rely on groundwater for
survival. The Amargosa River, which is fed by all pathways on both sides of Yucca Mt., is considered the
third largest in the western U.S. and parts of it run year round above ground. Research conducted by Inyo
County, CA, defines fast pathways from Yucca Mt. to area springs used for drinking water by many.
Transportation, Aging and Disposal (TAD) Canisters

The draft repository SEIS deals primarily with DOE’s decision to alter the design of repository surface
facilities to incorporate the concept of Transportation, Aging and Disposal (TAD) canisters. TADs are
intended to simplify handling of spent fuel at the repository by having waste loaded into welded canister at
the reactor sites. Then, using a series of different overpacks, the TADs can be stored at the reactors,
transported to the repository, stored or aged at the repository surface facility, and ultimately disposed of
underground, all without ever having to rehandle the actual spent fuel.

While in theory, TADs would simplify repository surface facility design and operations (by reducing the
need for extensive SNF handling facilities), the reality is that the effect is to transfer risks and impacts from
the repository to the reactor locations where the handling operations would take place. The final SEIS needs
to comprehensively assess risks and impacts to workers, facilities, communities and the environment at all
of the reactor locations where TADs would have to be used.

TADs also complicate waste transportation. Many reactor sites already have (or are in the process of
implementing) on site dry storage facilities using multipurpose (storage/transport) container systems that are
not compatible with TADs and would require either repackaging of the SNF into TADs prior to transport or
the use of non-standard transport vehicles.
H
ME: Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth www.h-o-m-e.org Breaking the Silence of Nuclear Denial


TADs can only be shipped via rail or by very large, oversized/heavy-haul trucks. Because rail access is
NOT available at Yucca Mountain, and there is not guarantee it ever will be, the SEIS should have assessed
the impacts of a TAD based transportation system that can not use rail as the primary mode of transportation
to Yucca.

There are no final TAD designs in the draft SEIS, so it is difficult to assess how TADs will impact the
repository system, including the transportation components.


Costs and financial arrangements for the use of TADs are unknown.

The proposed TAD system is not compatible with dry storage systems currently in use at civilian nuclear
power plants.

Many utilities have specific problems with use of the proposed TAD system at specific reactor sites.

DOE offers no meaningful alternative to the proposed TAD canister system.
Draft Rail Alignment SEIS

The draft Rail EIS includes the Mina Rail Corridor as a “non-preferred alternative.” However, NEPA
requires that alternative evaluated in an EIS be capable of being selected –i.e., they must be viable
alternatives. Because to Walker River Paiute Tribe has refused permission for DOE to use any portion of its
reservation for the proposed rail spur (and without such permission the Mina route cannot be used), it is
inappropriate for DOE to have included Mina as an alternative for comparing rail corridors in the draft EIS.
The mina route is not viable and should have been excluded from the EIS.

The Rail DEIS No Action Alternative is also inappropriate and perhaps unlawful. If DOE does not select
the Caliente or Mina rail alignment, the DEIS states that the future course “is uncertain.” In fact, if rail
access to Yucca Mountain is not implemented, the NO Action alternative would be legal-weight truck
shipments.

The repository SEIS should have evaluated the impacts of a legal-weight truck transport system nationwide
and within Nevada. 
DSEIS Does Not Adequately Address Transportation Safety and Security.

It does not consider worst case accidents - such combinations of factors “are not reasonably foreseeable”.


It underestimates consequences of severe accidents involving long duration fires.

It underestimates consequences of terrorist attack.


It dismisses potential for human error to exacerbate consequences of accidents or terrorist attacks.


Dismisses potential for unique local conditions to exacerbate consequences of accidents or terrorist attacks


The rail DEIS does not fully evaluate repository shipments into NV from CA or the impacts to Northern
Nevada (especially the Reno/Sparks/Washoe County area.

Under Proposed Action, 9,500 rail casks and 2,700 truck casks to Yucca Mountain over 50 years; if no
second repository, 24,000 rail casks and 5,000 truck casks.

Only 8% of rail shipments enter NV from CA if Caliente rail line is developed, compared to 21% if Mina
rail line is developed; 32 % of truck casks enter NV from CA.

The rail DEIS ignores potential for larger number of rail cask shipments into NV from CA for Caliente or
Mina options (>4,400, or >45% of total under proposed action).


The rail DEIS Ignores potential for large number of LWT shipments into NV from CA if there is no rail
access to Yucca (>24,000, >45% of total under proposed action).
Some General Comments

DOE’s selection of the Caliente Corridor is not supported by the information presented in the Draft SEIS –
the information in the DEIS does not adequately compare Caliente with other viable rail corridors.

DOE’s study of the Mina Corridor as a “non-preferred alternative” is not warranted given the Walker River
Paiute Tribal Council’s withdrawal of support.


Because DOE has now announced that the rail line it proposes would be a “Shared Use” line, the USDOT
Surface Transportation Board should be the lead agency that prepares the Rail Alignment EIS.

The DOE contention that non-rail shipments would be made by over-weight trucks is unsubstantiated, and
the impacts of the use of overweight truck in Nevada and elsewhere are not analyzed.due by 1/10/08