NYT: Million Years of Safety Are Sought for A-Waste (Yucca Mt.)

[DeepModem Mom]

Million Years of Safety Are Sought for A-Waste
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: August 10, 2005


WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it had revised its health standard for the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada to limit radiation releases for a million years.

The new standard is a response to a federal appeals court ruling 13 months ago that said the previous standard, for 10,000 years, did not go far enough. The revision includes an additional standard for 990,000 years.

Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under legal challenges led by Nevada state officials since Congress selected it in 1987 to be a central depository for nuclear waste now stored across the country. But the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed all but one challenge to the project last summer.

The remaining question was the agency's health safety guarantee, which was many fewer years than the National Academy of Science had recommended for the project.

The announcement by the environmental agency drew stinging criticism from Nevada lawmakers who have consistently opposed moving the nation's radioactive material into their state....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/politics/10yucca.html