Senate Approves Nevada Nuclear Waste Site

A procedural vote, which was adopted 60 to 39, cleared the way for a final voice vote to approve the Yucca Mountain project. Senate support was the final hurdle standing in the way of implementation of the proposal. According to the Department of Energy, officials will begin planning for the shipment of tons of highly radioactive waste to the remote Nevada location.

President Bush endorsed the site, which would be buried deep beneath Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, in February after the federal Department of Energy backed the project.

At the time, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said 12 years and $6.8 billion worth of study showed Yucca Mountain is a “scientifically sound and suitable” place to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

“I could not and would not recommend the Yucca Mountain site without having first determined that [it will] … protect the health and safety of the public,” Abraham said.

Under legislation adopted earlier, Nevada’s governor had the right to veto the location, which he did. But the legislation said Congress could override the governor’s objections with a majority vote in the House and the Senate. The House approved the project 306-117 on May 8.

The government decided 15 years ago to study Yucca Mountain, a site adjacent to a former nuclear test site. The research had to show that the storage facility would not leak significantly for 10,000 years. Two other potential sites in Washington State and Texas were eliminated in both the House and Senate.

Opponents say chemical conditions at Yucca Mountain are certain to cause corrosion in the containers and to spread the radioactive materials. Scientists agree materials could leak into water that flows inside the mountain and could contaminate water beneath the surrounding desert.

A broad coalition of industry groups has been pushing for approval of the Yucca Mountain waste site, citing a government promise in 1982 that a repository would be constructed and running by January 1998. Environmentalists and anti-nuclear groups have vowed for years to battle the proposal.

Currently, more than 40,000 tons of highly radioactive reactor waste is stored at 103 nuclear power plants in 31 states. The amount increases by 2,000 tons every year.