19 Statement Of Anne Peirce Nevada Commission On Nuclear Projects To The U.S. Department Of Energy Office Of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Regarding The Draft Environmental Impact Statement For A Geologic Repository For The Disposal Of Spent Nuclear Fuel And High-Level Radioactive Waste At Yucca Mountain Presented At The Public Hearing In Reno, Nevada December 1, 1999 STATEMENT OF ANNE PEIRCE NEVADA COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR PROJECTS TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT REGARDING THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR A GEOLOGIC REPOSITORY FOR THE DISPOSAL OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN PRESENTED AT THE PUBLIC HEARING IN RENO, NEVADA DECEMBER 1, 1999 My name is Anne Peirce, and I am here today both as a member of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects and as a long-time resident of northern Nevada. I was appointed to the Commission in 1985 by Governor Bryan and have been actively involved with the Yucca Mountain program for over a decade. While the Commission on Nuclear Projects has studied and commented on numerous issues involving the federal high-level radioactive waste program over the years, I would like to focus my remarks today on three areas of concern in the draft Environmental Impact Statement. First, over the past few months, the Commission on Nuclear Projects has heard comments from affected local governments that DOE has ignored locally generated data and information in preparing the draft EIS. Several counties have apparently provided DOE with up to date information on demographics, highway accident rates, road conditions, emergency preparedness conditions, socioeconomic conditions, and other areas that were not utilized in the draft EIS. This is a serious oversight on DOE's part and calls into question the adequacy of the analyses contained in the draft EIS. Second, the overall treatment of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste transportation in the draft EIS is deficient. It is unconscionable that a document of this importance and with such wide-ranging import does not contain clearly identified national highway and rail shipping routes for moving thousands of tons of highly radioactive wastes from reactor locations around the country to the proposed repository. It is clear from the analyses contained in chapter 6 of the draft EIS and in Appendix J that a point-to-point analysis, including a route-specific evaluation, was carried out by DOE contractors. Nowhere in the document, however, are the routes that would be used for transporting waste to a Yucca Mountain facility described or identified. The failure to disclose shipping routes effectively keeps members of the public in states and communities affected by the proposed action from having access to information essential for their participation in the National Environmental Policy Act process. This deficiency alone is sufficient to require that the draft EIS be withdrawn and reissued in a form that permits full and informed public involvement, as clearly intended by NEPA. While the draft EIS does discuss specific highway and rail shipping routes in Nevada, it is nevertheless deficient in another important way. The draft document does not contain analyses of routes and modes sufficient to support the identification of preferred alternatives. This is true for highway routes, rail spur corridors, and modal choices (including heavy-haul intermodal alternatives). Nevertheless, the statement is made in several places that the draft EIS is intended to support future decisions regarding the selection of preferred routes and modes of transport in Nevada. I submit that DOE cannot have it both ways. Either the draft EIS contains sufficient information and analyses to clearly identify and justify the selection of preferred transportation alternatives or the document is deficient and must be redone. DOE has been putting off decision regarding the shipment of spent fuel and high-level waste since the initial Yucca Mountain Environmental Assessment was issued in 1985. There is simply no excuse for not disclosing preferred transportation alternatives as part of this Environmental Impact Statement. As a State official and also as a northern Nevada resident, I am very concerned that the draft EIS does not deal honestly and comprehensively with potential transportation impacts to the Reno-Spark metropolitan area and northern Nevada in general. Given the rail spur that is proposed to be constructed from just east of Carlin to Yucca Mountain, it is very likely that the Reno area will experience shipments of dangerous spent fuel from California and perhaps Oregon and Washington as well along the Union Pacific Rail Line through the center of town. Yet, the draft EIS does not address this issue; it does not evaluate the potential impacts to the Reno area and northern Nevada; and it does not assess the costs of adequately preparing for accidents or other emergencies involving such shipments, including the potential for terrorism and sabotage occurring in or near Reno. On final point. The draft EIS treats Native American issues and concerns in a manner that is not only inadequate, but also condescending and insulting. While acknowledging that there could be impacts to Native American cultural sites along rail spur routes or at Yucca Mountain, the draft document completely ignores wider issues and impacts to Native peoples and communities. The draft includes a discussion of the Native American "perspective" on the project, but then proceeds to discount the viewpoint expressed and goes on to conclude that no significant impacts to Native Americans will occur, even though no substantive impact assessment work has been done in any of the Native communities potentially affected by the facility or by transportation routes. In closing, I would like to join the Governor, congressional delegation, and others in urging DOE to abandon the ill-conceived and potentially devastating Yucca Mountain project and choose a realistic no-action alternative as the preferred alternative in the final EIS. Thank you. ***************************************************************** 20 Statement to the DOE OCRWM Regarding the YM Draft EIS For A Geologic Repository At Yucca Mountain, Nevada Presented At The Public Hearing In Reno, Nevada December 2, 1999 STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. LOUX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEVADA AGENCY FOR NUCLEAR PROJECTS OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF CIVILIAN RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT REGARDING THE DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR A GEOLOGIC REPOSITORY FOR THE DISPOSAL OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NYE COUNTY, NEVADA PRESENTED AT THE PUBLIC HEARING IN RENO, NEVADA DECEMBER 2, 1999 Since the inception of the federal high- level radioactive waste program in 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) work with respect to the candidate Yucca Mountain repository site has been characterized by bias and inappropriately favorable interpretations of data that mask serious and even fatal flaws present at the site and within the federal program as a whole. The State of Nevada's review of this draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) indicates that the document continues this pattern. The State believes the draft EIS to be legally and substantively deficient. Among other deficiencies: ÿ The draft EIS does not contain an accurate or adequate description of the project; ÿ It postulates a "no action" alternative that is entirely unrealistic and unreasonable; ÿ It fails to adequately evaluate the health, safety, and environmental impacts of a program that will intentionally - as part of the so- called waste isolation strategy - contaminate a groundwater source that is currently, and will be in the future, used by people for drinking, food production, and other needs; ÿ It fails to adequately assess cumulative impacts from past, current, and future activities at the Nevada Test Site (NTS); ÿ It completely ignores the potential for major and widespread socioeconomic impacts from the project, both in Nevada and in cities and communities throughout the nation; and ÿ It fails to identify spent fuel and high-level waste shipping modes and routes in a way that permits people in affected communities to participate in the review and public comment process. Asserting that the design for a Yucca Mountain facility is still "evolving", DOE describes a number of design alternatives and options in the draft EIS with the expectation that whatever design is finally selected, its impacts will have been bounded by the analysis of the alternatives and options. The range of possible impacts is wide, and they all lead to releases of radionuclides from the repository that contaminate a groundwater source that is currently used for drinking water and agricultural purposes. Because the description of the project in the draft EIS is an ever moving and changing target, it is not possible to adequately assess the future risks of the proposed repository to people and the environment. With respect to the "no action" alternative contained in the draft EIS, DOE has chosen two "no action" scenarios that are unrealistic, unreasonable, and legally deficient. The document postulates a situation where, in the place of a repository at Yucca Mountain, spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes are assumed to be stored on-site at reactor and generator locations for a period of 10,000 years. In the first "no action" scenario, DOE assumes that active institutional control is maintained for the entire time, while under the second scenario, institutional control ceases after the first 100 years. Both scenarios are wholly inappropriate. In the absence of a repository, it is absurd to assume that spent fuel and HLW would simply be left at reactor sites forever. The most plausible "no action" scenario is one where there would be some period (100 years or so) of at-reactor storage (most likely in dry storage configurations), combined with the application of waste reduction technologies, and followed by some form of revised (and, hopefully, dramatically improved and equitable) process to site and construct storage and/or disposal facilities. What DOE appears to have done is select scenarios designed to generate the greatest public alarm and political pressure in favor of its proposed action. In so doing, DOE has violated the clear intent of NEPA that a realistic and reasonable "no action" alternative be evaluated and compared to the proposed action. The State of Nevada also believes that the Yucca Mountain "project," as set forth in the draft EIS and subsequent DOE design documents violates the clear intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that disposal of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste be accomplished by means of geologic disposal. The "evolving" facility design relies almost exclusively on engineered barriers, including a 750,000 year waste package, over 100 miles of titanium drip shields, and other engineering fixes to compensate for the serious inadequacies of the site and to make the facility work. The draft EIS thereby implicitly acknowledges that Yucca Mountain, as a geologic formation, is incapable of isolating highly radioactive and long- lived wastes from the environment. What is left is an engineered storage facility that was clearly not envisioned by the 1982 Act. The draft EIS inexcusably ignores a robust and extensive body of research produced by the State of Nevada, by independent researchers, and even by DOE contractors that clearly demonstrates the socioeconomic risks and potential impacts associated with a repository and related spent fuel and high-level waste transportation. Such research has documented the potential for substantial and sustained impacts to Nevada's visitor-dependent economy should the Yucca Mountain project go forward. The draft EIS ignores these findings and does not consider the economic consequences to cities and communities either within Nevada or along transportation corridors nationwide. In addition to our testimony at these hearings, the State of Nevada will be submitting extensive written comments on this draft EIS. It is our hope that these comments and those of all others will be seriously considered, and that a reasonable "no action" alternative (as opposed to the unreasonable and unrealistic ones contained in the draft document) is selected as the preferred action in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.