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Home > Electronic Reading Room > Document Collections > Commission Documents > Commission Meetings, Slides, Transcripts, Meeting SRMs, and Full Written Explanation for Closed Meetings > 1997
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05/15/1997
1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
***
BRIEFING ON STATUS OF HLW PROGRAM
***
PUBLIC MEETING
***
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Commission Hearing Room
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland
Thursday, May 15, 1997
The Commission met in open session, pursuant to
notice, at 9:35 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
Chairman of the Commission, presiding.
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of the Commission
KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission
GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission
EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission
NILS J. DIAZ, Member of the Commission
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STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
ANNETTE VIETTI-COOK, Assistant Secretary
KAREN D. CYR, General Counsel
LAKE H. BARRETT, DOE
WILLIAM BOYLE
STEPHAN BROCOUM
STEVE FRISHMAN, State of Nevada
ROBERT LOUX, State of Nevada
NICK STELLAVATO, Nye County
DENNIS BECHTEL, Clark County Nuclear Waste
Division
ROBERT HOLDEN, National Congress of American
Indians
RICHARD ARNOLD, Las Vegas Indian Center
MAURICE EBEN, Pyramid Lake Paiute
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P R O C E E D I N G S
[9:35 a.m.]
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen.
This morning, the Commission will be briefed by
Mr. Lake Barrett and his staff from the U.S. Department of
Energy on the status of the Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management Program. In addition, the Commission welcomes
representatives from the State of Nevada, Nye and Clark
Counties, and Native American representatives who will be
afforded the opportunity to address the Commission after the
DOE, Department of Energy.
The last time the Commission was briefed by the
DOE on its program was September 4, 1996. The last time the
Commission heard from the others who are participating in
today's briefing was in September, 1994.
With the exception of Commissioner Rogers, none of
the other commissioners here today were on the Commission at
the last Commission briefing when state and local
governments and Native American tribes addressed the
Commission. So the Commission has been looking forward to
this briefing and I would ask you to bear that in mind as
you present whatever your material is that you cannot make
assumptions as to what people know and do not know.
The Department of Energy's briefing is a
. 4
continuation of a series of annual briefings by DOE for the
Commission regarding the status of its high-level waste
program. Since last September, much has happened in the
high-level radioactive waste program and we can expect more
change in the future.
Legislation that could affect this country's high-
level waste program is being considered by the Congress as
Mr. Barrett and I both know. In fact, just two weeks ago,
on April 29, the Commission and the Department of Energy as
well as congressional representatives from the State of
Nevada testified before the House Commerce Committee's
Subcommittee on Energy and Power on its views on the bill,
H.R. 1270. Both the DOE and the NRC are coping with reduced
budgets for their respective high-level waste programs
although I would say we feel, of course, we are hurting the
most. And each agency has taken a hard look at its program.
Briefings such as today's can prove to be very
beneficial in times of change and diminishing resources.
The free exchange of information in a public forum between
the two agencies and the affected parties can help to
optimize the utilization of resources and to effectively and
efficiently carry out our responsibility for this country's
high-level radioactive waste management program.
Mr. Barrett, the Commission looks forward to
hearing from you today on the status of DOE's high-level
. 5
waste program and unless the commissioners have anything to
add, I would ask you to begin.
MR. BARRETT: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
As is customary, I thought I would start the
briefing off with four or five visual representations of
some of the work that has happened at Yucca Mountain since
the last briefing.
If we could start with the first slide, please?
Probably the most significant thing we have done
is daylighted the tunnel boring machine on April 25. What I
would like to do is show you -- the view that you have in
front of you is the south portal where the machine is going
to come out and we have about a 30-second video of the
machine coming out of the south portal wall.
If you could run the video, please?
[Video shown.]
MR. BARRETT: That was very dramatic. But the
real key to the work we are doing at Yucca Mountain as the
science and the engineering and the tunnel boring machine
was just a delivery mechanism to get into the core of the
program, which is the science and the engineering inside the
mountain in the laboratory and I would like to show you how
we are doing that science in the mountain, if we could have
the next slide, please.
This is the schematic of the five-mile loop that
. 6
we did complete and I would call attention to the lower
left-hand corner is the thermal testing facility.
Next slide, please.
In the thermal testing facility, we have started
some of the thermal tests which we believe are very
important to the program and most constituents that follow
this program believe that also. And there are two main
tests we are going to be doing here.
In the upper left-hand corner is the smaller
thermal mechanical test and in the lower right-hand side
will be the larger drift scale test. And in the next
slides, I will show you what is going on in those two, those
two alcoves.
Next slide, please.
This is the 30-meter thermo-mechanical test block
where we characterize the rock very carefully. It is
probably the most characterized piece of rock in the world.
Next slide, please.
We placed sensors and heaters in the very center
of that, sort of in front of the man's helmet is the four
kilowatt heater that is placed in the center. We have over
330 thermal sensing points as well as to check the rock
expansion and the temperature and the water movement.
Next slide, please.
We started this experiment on schedule last
. 7
August. We are now gathering data.
Next slide, please.
And we are nearing the end of the data gathering
of the initial heat-up phase. We are actually gathering
thermal profiles through the rock. We can use this to
calibrate our models as we go forward.
Next slide, please.
This is the predictions, so we can calibrate real
data in the mountain at the repository horizon versus what
our models tell us we will find in the models as we move
forward in this area.
Next slide, please.
That was the small thermo-mechanical test. We are
in the process of preparing for the large drift scale test,
which will be a simulation of an actual size of an
emplacement drift where we will put heat in the center. We
have finished the excavation of the thermal drift. We have
drilled over a mile of instrumented bore holes around it so
we can follow temperature profiles and see the thermo-
mechanical, hydrological effects of the experiment. This is
the form being placed in the drift to allow for the concrete
liners that we expect to have in the repository.
I believe that is the end of the -- excuse me, the
large block test. Next slide, please.
We also have on the surface another experiment
. 8
called the large block test that we finished and that was
started up this last February after we went through the
budget changes last year. This test, we will heat this
block of rock that is about 15 feet high and 10 feet and,
Chairman, you saw that when you were there at your trip in
the heat there last August.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And that was the real heat
block test.
MR. BARRETT: And so that has started up.
Next slide, please.
This is a picture of the heaters on the top and we
will heat the block up. It is heating up now. And then we
will disassemble the block to look very carefully at the
thermal, chemical, hydrologic interactions inside the block
of the tuff. So these are just photos of recent activities
that we have had in the science area.
When Dan Dreyfus spoke to you last September, the
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program was in its
early stages of implementing the revised program plan, which
would be published in June of 1996. Congress endorsed that
plan in the '97 appropriations act and the President's 1998
budget request for the program supports its continued
implementation.
With adequate funding, we will complete the Yucca
Mountain site viability assessment next year and maintain
. 9
momentum toward the geologic disposal as set forth in the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act. As you have mentioned, the Senate
has passed a bill addressing interim storage and the House
is presently considering a similar bill. The Administration
opposes both of the bills and the President has indicated he
would veto either bill if presented in its current form.
Despite its opposition to the current legislation,
the Administration remains committed to resolving the
complex and important issue of nuclear waste management.
Secretary Pena has stated his willingness to work
cooperatively with the Congress on nuclear waste disposal
issues.
Whatever the outcome, the federal government's
longstanding commitment to permanent geologic disposal
should remain the centerpiece of the nation's high-level
radioactive waste management policy.
Over the last several years, the Yucca Mountain
project has been focusing on the major unresolved technical
issues. This will permit us, by late 1998, to provide the
four components of the viability assessment required by the
'97 appropriations act. The viability assessment will give
policymakers key information regarding geologic disposal of
Yucca Mountain. The Administration has stated that this
assessment should be available to inform any decision
concerning the site for an interim storage facility.
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The viability assessment is not expected to be
sufficient for repository site recommendation and licensing.
Indeed, the viability assessment will include a plan for
additional site investigations and design work necessary for
preparing a complete license application. It is important
that, in this context, we remain clear that in considering
the adequacy and sufficiency of the viability assessment.
If expectations incorrectly elevate the viability assessment
to a final go or no-go decision on the repository or as an
agency action needed for site recommendation, then a
decision will be premature and not meet the requirements of
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
I seek the assistance of the Commission and other
knowledgeable groups in maintaining the distinction between
the viability assessment and the site recommendation.
Our revised program plan recognizes the need to
update the regulatory framework for the repository to
reflect policy changes since the enactment of the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act, the realities of budget constraints on the
program and, in particular, the understanding gained in more
than a decade of site investigations at Yucca Mountain.
We have considered these factors in the proposed
amendments to our siting guidelines. It is similarly
important that these factors be considered by the
Environmental Protection Agency and the Commission
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respectively in developing radiation protection standards
and revising the licensing criteria from a repository at
Yucca Mountain. The Department believes that the resulting
regulations and licensing process should focus on the issues
central to protecting public health and safety and the
environment and not require a degree of proof that is beyond
what science and engineering can reasonably provide.
It is important that the revised regulations
consider the inherent limitations of performance assessment
and the uncertainties associated with the analyses of
repository performance. Although these analyses provide
meaningful insights to the potential performance of the
repository system and consequences of disruptive events, the
results should not be viewed as predictions of actual
repository performance. Used as a tool to organize and
evaluate technical information obtained during site
characterization, performance assessment can help all
parties understand the potential benefits and consequences
of geologic disposal.
In December of 1996, we issued a notice of
proposed rulemaking to revise our repository siting
guidelines as they would be applied to evaluating
suitability of the Yucca Mountain site. The approach we
proposed focuses on the overall system performance as the
basis for decisions about site suitability and repository
. 12
development. The suitability decision need not and should
not depend on individual attributes of the site outside the
context of an assessment of the performance of the proposed
engineered repository. We continue to follow with interest
discussions by your staff regarding potential changes to the
Commission's licensing requirements. Changes that would
result in a simple risk-based rule are particularly
appropriate. Reconsideration of defense in depth and
subsystem performance criteria in the context of an overall
strategy for revisions to Part 60 is also appropriate.
We understand the staff intends to provide the
Commission with options for possible revisions to Part 60
later this year. We support the staff's position that the
Commission's consideration of possible revisions to its
licensing requirements should not be on the critical path of
the Department's revision of its citing guidelines or any
assessment of the viability of the Yucca Mountain site.
To support preparations for a license application,
however, it is important that the key requirements of Part
60 be clear by the time we initiate the final phase of
license application design, which is currently scheduled for
July of 1999. Along with the Commission, we are awaiting
the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed radiation
protection standard for a repository at Yucca Mountain. We
remain concerned that the agency could promulgate standards
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for geologic disposal that would contain both individual
protection and groundwater protection criteria that are
inconsistent with the realities of geologic disposal.
We specifically agree with the view expressed
recently by the Chairman that incorporation of separate
groundwater criteria would not enhance public safety.
I am pleased to report we made considerable
progress since we last reported to the Commission in
September. We are implementing a credible plan that
maintains the progress toward a national decision on
geologic disposal.
As you have just seen, we completed the excavation
of the five-mile exploratory loop on April 25. From this
point forward, the work will focus primarily on the thermal
and hydrologic testing, confirming our understanding of the
rock where the repository would be constructed. In August
of 1996, we completed the initial construction in the
northern Ghost Dance Fault alcove. This alcove is the first
of two that provide access to the Ghost Dance Fault, a major
geologic feature in the repository setting. Testing in
these alcoves are helping to determine the flow properties
and the chemistry of the water in the fault zone.
We intend to construct an additional small
diameter exploratory drift into the potential emplacement
area to the west of the main tunnel in 1998. This will help
. 14
to improve our understanding of the rock characteristics and
the hydrologic processes that are important to design,
construction and performance of a repository at Yucca
Mountain.
As reported to you last September, levels of
chlorine 36 well above the expected natural background
levels were detected at five locations within the ESF. A
total of 189 samples covering more than four miles of the
exploratory tunnel have now been analyzed for chlorine 36
and other isotopes. Elevated levels of chlorine 36 were
found in eight locations, including the five previously
identified. These levels are sufficiently above natural
background to suggest that some water has rapidly moved from
the surface to the repository horizon in the last 50 years.
The new data are consistent with the earlier
results. Rapid penetration of surface water to the
repository depth generally correlates with known faults in
the bedded tuff overlying the repository host rock.
We worked in critical elements of the repository
in waste package design obtaining information needed as
input to the design process. Repository design activities
addressed thermal management, performance confirmation
design, waste handling emplacement and retrieval,
development of system structures and components important to
safety that have little or no regulatory precedent and
. 15
design basis analysis.
The waste package design activities address
criticality analysis methodology development, preliminary
thermal, structural and shielding analyses, containment
barrier fabrication, closure feasibility analyses,
conceptual invert design and material selection. These
efforts will support designs for components of an engineered
barrier system that contributes to isolation and retardation
of radio nuclides.
We are also reviewing suggested changes to the
licensee support system regulation regarding working with
your staff to resolve any comments that we may have. In
light of the significant advances in computer technology and
connectivity that have occurred since these requirements
were last revised in 1991, the proposed change in the
Commission's rule appears to be most appropriate.
Our waste acceptance storage and transportation
project is focused on planning and long lead time activities
that must precede the removal of spent nuclear fuel from
reactor sites once a federal receiving facility becomes
available. These activities are consistent with the
Administration's policy on siting an interim storage
facility.
During the past year, we developed a market-driven
approach that will rely on the maximum use of private
. 16
industry capabilities, expertise and experience to provide
the necessary services and equipment required to accept and
transport commercial nuclear fuel to a federal facility. We
are presently working to establish a competitive procurement
process to award fixed-price, multi-year, performance-based
contracts to the industry.
To address long lead time requirements related to
centralized storage, we completed a non site-specific design
for a centralized interim storage facility and submitted a
topical safety analysis report for this design through your
staff on May 1, 1997. We believe that the staff's
acceptance and successful review of this report will reduce
the time required for subsequent preparation and staff
review of a license application.
We are working closely with the Office of
Environmental Management within DOE to ensure that near-
term decisions related to the stabilization and storage of
department-owned spent fuel are compatible with the
configurations required for disposal as we know them at this
time. We believe that we can safety dispose of the
Department's inventory of spent fuel along with the
commercial fuel and high-level waste. We intend to enhance
interactions with your staff on our plans for the management
of this inventory and to identify potential technical and
licensing issues associated with disposal that may require
. 17
early resolution.
Though implementation of our revised plan has
focused on the program key issues and maintaining momentum
of the repository program, within the next 18 months we will
complete the viability assessment that will serve as a
significant benchmark for the program. The products
associated with the viability assessment will provide all
parties, including the Commission, a better understanding of
geologic disposal at Yucca Mountain and the significance of
the data available. It will also help inform ongoing
revisions to the regulatory framework and guide completion
of the site characterization work.
We intend to keep you and your staff advised of
our progress and look forward to a constructive dialogue as
we carry out our mutual responsibilities.
Thank you for the opportunity to brief the
Commission and I will answer any questions that you may
have.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Barrett.
I should have announced this before. Because we
have quite a few presenters today, I think we are going to
try and have a more structured set of Q's and A's than we
would normally have. Of course, I am going to take
advantage of that and start. But then we will go down the
line and try to have everyone comprehensively address his or
. 18
her questions to you so that we can finish in a reasonable
time.
Let me ask you, this is relative to your actual
submitted statement. On page 1, you talked about a schedule
for implementing the process with contract holders to
determine what actions under the standard contract would be
appropriate to address the anticipated delay in DOE
accepting spent fuel. Do you have a schedule for
implementing that process?
MR. BARRETT: We have to file a brief before the
Court at the end of the month. In the brief before the
Court, we will describe the actions that we were taking
under the remand from the Court to the Department. That is
currently being worked with in the Department and in this
setting I would prefer not to comment.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, so perhaps I won't ask
you, then.
MR. BARRETT: After the brief is submitted then it
might be more appropriate to have that discussion.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: More appropriate to do that.
All right.
Can you talk a little bit more about the schedule
for submitting the license application plan? Are you
coordinating this plan with the NRC staff?
MR. BARRETT: Yes, we discussed at the last
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management meeting and within the last few weeks we did
discuss and present our work on that to the staff. The
actual date for that, Dr. Brocoum, would you -- do we have a
schedule as to when that would be submitted to the staff?
This is Dr. Steve Brocoum, who is the manager,
assistant manager for licensing at the Yucca Mountain
project.
MR. BROCOUM: I think we have a draft LA plan this
fall. Then we will finalize it during fiscal year '98.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Can you elaborate on your
concerns with the NRC staff's prioritization of the key
technical issues?
MR. BARRETT: This is a judgmental issue. One of
the things that we believe are quite important in the
overall repository context is the design of the engineered
barriers and its interaction with the natural setting.
In the KTIs of the Commission, design was one of
the ones that were ranked at a lower priority than others
when you had to deal with your budget situation as we have
had to deal with ours. That is an area we think is fairly
important and I know your staff is working in that area as
best they can under the budget constraints.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: This afternoon, the Commission
is going to be briefed by the NRC staff on its performance
assessment efforts and you alluded to this in your comments.
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Can you flesh out a little bit more how the performance
assessments of DOE compare to the ones being developed by
the NRC staff?
MR. BARRETT: I think Dr. Brocoum or Dr. Boyle
might be better able to give you a complete answer to that.
From my perspective, they do reinforce each other,
different answers, different approaches. But nonetheless,
there is nothing there that is a surprise to me from the
briefings that I have received.
Steve?
MR. BROCOUM: I think we have had a lot of
interaction with the staff on performance assessment. We
have one, I think, planned for July. My recollection is we
have a two-day technical exchange.
I think in the last year or so there has been some
convergence in the fund. Generally, the staff has had
higher releases sooner. Ours had lesser releases later. I
think we have kind of converged in the last year as we have
taken a higher percolation flux into account.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me talk to you, and since
you are up there, perhaps you can stay. Maybe you could sit
down. Since I am questioning you, I will let you rest your
legs.
On page 9 of Mr. Barrett's statement, you state
that the average percolation flux is in the range of 2 to 15
. 21
millimeters per year. Your earlier estimates of percolation
flux were less than 1 millimeter per year. And you also
state that accumulating evidence is that water percolates
down through the proposed repository host rock predominantly
through the fractures in the rock.
These seem to be somewhat significant departures
from your earlier results and I guess the real
question -- there are two questions. One is, do you think
that this new information could significantly affect your
schedules for completing the viability assessment and the
license application. That's question one. And, second, how
has it changed your testing program?
MR. BROCOUM: First question, as you know, the
viability assessment is a point in time and it is a status
of where we are at that point in time so I don't see that it
would change our viability assessment schedule.
With regard to license applications, we have
several years of testing to go and analysis and so at the
moment we don't see it changing our schedule for license
application.
And what are we doing? There are two things. One
is we are doing a risk mitigation -- what we call a risk
mitigation. We are doing several activities to the tune of
about $14-1/2 million of enhanced site characterization
including constructing some niches in the ESF, some where
. 22
there is higher chlorine 36, one of them, and the other
where the chlorine 36 was not higher. Then we are going to
seal up and instrument those niches and see how the water
percolates in each one and we are also going to introduce
some traces above it.
The second thing which I think is in the testimony
is, of course, we are considering east-west drift and that
will give us some more information across the block with
regard to the percolation of water through the repository.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, and one last question.
On pages 7 through 12, and this is a follow-on to this, you
talk about the various testing programs that you are
initiating since the tunnel has been completed. Can you
talk a little bit more about how you are actually
integrating the results of the various programs into one
overall test program?
MR. BROCOUM: Well, the project was reorganized
last November and so that under my management we have the
engineering, the science, the performance assessment and the
regulatory systems all under my responsibility. We have
also worked very hard to integrate doing these workshops,
what we call abstraction workshops, between the PA, the
engineering and the science. These are ongoing right now
and the key models, different models, are key to the
performance assessments.
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I think we have made a lot of progress in
integrating the project.
Is that responsive to your question?
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
Commissioner Rogers.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, just right on that
general subject, the drift scale heater test, what is the
duration of that test? How long will that go?
MR. BROCOUM: I defer to Dr. Boyle.
MR. BARRETT: Dr. William Boyle is a team leader
that works for me in the area of performance confirmation.
MR. BOYLE: At least two years of heating but it
is not completely determined as of this point yet. We are
still doing some analyses. It may be as many as four years
of heating and then a subsequent cool down period of
approximately equal length as the heat-up time.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Thank you.
I wonder if you could give me a little bit more
about your thinking on this question of bounding values on
page 5 of your testimony? I didn't quite understand why you
felt that the selection of a set of bounding values
necessarily introduces an excessive amount of
conservativism. Doesn't that depend on what those bounding
values are rather than whether you actually set them?
MR. BROCOUM: Of course it depends on what they
. 24
are. But if you tend to, for each parameter, pick the most
conservative value, you may be in a position that you either
cannot design the repository or, if you can design it, you
cannot afford it. It is that kind of an issue. It is a
tradeoff between cost, time and performance.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it is just that the
statement here really says the simultaneous selection of
bounding values for many of the key parameters could, you
know, compounding of conservativism could cause the analysis
to lose its useful insight. It seems to me that the notion
of bounding values is very important and, you know, you
don't want to abandon bounding values. It is a question of
how they are set.
So the emphasis that you just made on their being
very conservative at the outset is of proper concern but I
am just a little troubled that you might be suggesting that
we don't use bounding values. They have to be there.
MR. BROCOUM: Well, we tend to have probability
distribution functions for many of these parameters. And in
that way, you pick the bound as also a matter of judgment.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Yes. That's all I have.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Yes, you address
transportation in your written testimony and your activities
. 25
with the transportation industry and in that you may have
answered the question that I have and, if you did, I
apologize for that. But the question is, I would like to
know what the status of the topical safety analysis report
on transportation, what the status of that is?
MR. BARRETT: We don't have a specific topical
safety analysis report for transportation. We have a
topical -- we have four topical safety analysis reports
presently before the Commission. Probably the most
significant one is the generic centralized storage facility
that we just submitted on May 1.
Prior to that, we submitted a topical safety
analysis report for a transfer of facility to allow the
utility to either be used at reactors to move from a small
canister to a large canister with crane limitations. Also,
we have incorporated that into our central storage facility.
If there was ever an off-normal condition that you had to
change, take fuel out of canisters for an off-normal event.
So we would use it, potentially reactor licensees, 50
licensees could use it or we could use it.
We have also submitted a topical safety analysis
for burn-up credit which can be used for transportation
certifications under Part 71. Some of the technology could
also be used for our criticality safety analyses for the
repository criticality safety aspects. This is a concept
. 26
that is currently used in the European nations as well. So
we have been working with your staff on that for several
years.
In transportation, I think those are the
transportation-related ones, unless there is something else
that --
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Well, given the work that you
are going to be doing with private industry on
transportation, is there going to be some sort of a report
or analysis that is going to address some of the issues that
will surface with transportation?
MR. BARRETT: The most comprehensive part of that
would be in the Yucca Mountain environmental impact
statement, which we have under way with the draft statement
due in '99. That will address the entire environmental
aspects of the Yucca Mountain project, including
transportation. So that is where it will lead into what the
transportation impacts are across the country that would be
most explicitly gone through in the draft and final
environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain.
If we ever had an interim storage facility in this
country, depending on what the structure is and the statute
for that, we would also address there the transportation.
Or if that comes after the repository, we could reference
the repository environmental impact statement.
. 27
COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay, thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes. Are there any major,
long-term testing that might impact on the site selection
and license submittal by the year 2001, 2002?
MR. BARRETT: For the repository?
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: For the repository.
MR. BROCOUM: Well, the large-scale drift test
will probably be in the cool down phase at that point in
time, depending on how we do. We will also be doing the --
10 CFR 60 requires us to have a performance confirmation
program and as we wind down characterization activities,
they will be replaced by performance confirmation activities
which are designed to show you that the parameters that you
are using for your model and performance assessments are, in
reality, are within those bounds or distributions.
So basically we will have a performance
confirmation period. That goes on for all the time that the
repository is operational.
COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes, I know. But any of those
issues, could they potentially delay site selection if you
have a major test that is ongoing and it is not
substantially completed?
MR. BARRETT: What we have is we don't know now of
any test, any specific test, that is on the critical path
. 28
for -- when you say site selection, site suitability,
recommendations of the Secretary to the President, that
would be in the 2001 time frame.
We don't know any particular test that is on that
critical path. But we are doing much testing, we are doing
saturated zone testing, unsaturated zone testing, laboratory
testing, fuel testing.
As we learn from these tests, as we have learned,
for example, on the chlorine 36, we will learn things. We
keep a dynamic program that is flexible and adjusts on what
we learn.
If we find something requires more time, we will
take more time. We are not going to meet the schedule,
regardless of what we find. But, right now, based on the
work we have done so far, we have not seen anything that is
going to knock those schedules back.
Tomorrow or this afternoon I might get a call from
the project that there is something they found that could.
So I don't want to say we are just not on the schedule, no
matter what, but there is not any one particular test that
is the critical path to that. It is a combination of a lot
of things as we are testing. We have schedules that have
over 4000 nodal points that take us out to license
application and those are dynamically controlled in a
management system and sometimes it takes longer and
. 29
sometimes you do them shorter but, overall, when you look at
it and we status this every week in Steve's office, that we
are on track at this point. But that doesn't mean it can't
change.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I noted in your
statement and your formal statement as well the concern that
we not become a critical path item, that we get our Part 60
revision complete by July of '99. You are well aware that
that depends on EPA and we are a dependent rather than an
independent variable in that.
What is your sense as to EPA's timing? Do you
have any sense of that at the moment?
MR. BARRETT: I really don't. I know that EPA is
actively working on it and the status I really --
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I also noted your
comment that you supported the Chairman's testimony for the
Commission at the hearing with regard to what an appropriate
standard might look like, particularly with regard to
groundwater.
If it weren't for the interim storage piece of
this legislation that is before the Congress, if the
legislation were -- if it is possible you were to partition
it to those parts that are focused on Yucca Mountain and
trying to clarify Congress's intentions with regard to
. 30
permanent disposal, are those parts of the legislation, as I
say, put aside interim storage and forcing interim storage
to a certain site and certain timing, there is another part
of the legislation in S. 104 and in 1270, H.R. 1270, that
sort of looks at Yucca Mountain and sets a standard
different in the two bills and lays out various provisions
that are intended to deal with Yucca Mountain, not with
interim storage.
Has the Administration done any thinking about
those parts of the bill?
MR. BARRETT: As you are well aware, sir, the
Administration is an amalgamation of many different agencies
and groups. There was a lot of discussion early on in some
of the early versions of the bills, which those did evolve
and become more acceptable, let me say. The early versions,
that was basically a show-stopper. Those did evolve in the
Senate to something that was more to the Administration's
view.
To my knowledge, there has not been in the
Administration isolating that one item and saying would that
be totally unacceptable or not on its own. So the answer
is, I don't know and I don't think it has evolved to that
because the interim storage issues have been overriding.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The licensing support
system, I noticed your testimony there as well. It is our
. 31
responsibility to change the rule and I guess we have an
advanced notice of proposed rulemaking out on the Internet.
We are using the Internet to do our rulemaking.
If we can ge to the point where we are using the
Internet rather than obsolete, massively expensive systems,
whose responsibility will it be to enter all of the data
into the system? Is this primarily a budget item for you
the way you see LSS moving forward?
MR. BROCOUM: I think for all Department of Energy
data, it will be our responsibility to enter that and we are
now scanning our data, all our data, and by the end of 1999
all our backlog will be now in an electronic forum, both in
the retrievable and searchable text format and in the image
form. So we will have the ability to go whatever direction
we decide to go using electronic data recovery systems.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: That looks like it is
proceeding well? That is what you are saying to us.
The last are multipurpose canisters --
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: He was about to make a comment.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Oh, I'm sorry.
MR. BROCOUM: I think, from our perspective, both
sides, both the NRC staff and our staff are feeling pretty
comfortable with the direction everything is moving.
MR. BARRETT: I would add one thing to that. I
think an important point will be in our viability assessment
. 32
we have as a goal, not as a commitment but an internal goal
to have the entire viability assessment suite of documents
which will be a million pages, probably, when you add it all
up, available on, you know, electronic media, that we can
kind of experiment with that, so that whole package can be
available to all the constituencies to analyze, look at,
come to their own conclusions and evaluate the data that is
there.
So there will be a test case coming up very
shortly as to huge amount of information in electronic media
that it would be user friendly to all people who might wish
to use it. So we are working toward that and that is part
of where I personally watched as a test as to how well this
is going to work.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The last question is on
the multipurpose canister program which was terminated. But
what is the -- clearly, we would be better off if we could
get spent fuel into canisters that could be transported as
well as used for storage. There are private sector efforts
to do that.
But what is the ongoing involvement of the
Department in any fostering of license applications to us
for multipurpose canisters? Can you explain that?
MR. BARRETT: For dual purpose, which will be
storage and transportation, we do not. The only thing we
. 33
are considering doing is taking that to the third stage,
which we call multipurpose although it should be really tri-
purpose would be probably a better jargon for that, where it
would be storage, transportation and would be able to be
used in the disposal context as basically the inner
structure to the final waste disposal package.
That is the only thing we are considering doing
and we are negotiating with Westinghouse, who was the chosen
company, to see if there was some appropriate arrangement in
the context of the market-driven approach that we presently
now have.
We believe that the dual purpose technology is in
the marketplace and there is no need for any government
involvement to develop that at this point.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: On the multipurpose
side, how will that get into the marketplace? The previous
program you had with Westinghouse, does that technology
belong to the government and can be basically licensed to
anyone or does Westinghouse have primary access to it? How
did that particular contract work?
MR. BARRETT: The contract, okay, was a fixed-
price contract and we would pay for it. Therefore, the
design is wholly publicly owned, let me say. If it was
government money that did it, it would be publicly owned.
So the design was delivered by Westinghouse last
. 34
year and that exists and that is publicly available and we
have made that available to any vendor, anybody that wishes
it.
Westinghouse is proposing to go on to certify that
and go through the Part 71 certification process, which is a
very important test on the viability of such a concept. Our
original approach was that we would pay for that fully and
then it would be government owned and anyone could fabricate
it at that point. Now, the way we are going to integrate
that in with the market-driven approach is we would not
dictate or mandate that the regional service contractors,
that would be the market-driven contractors, what canisters
they will use. But the way we did it to provide the
multipurpose canister, which will probably cost hopefully a
little bit more but more than a dual purpose because it
could do more, to allow that to work in the market while we
would say any offsetting costs to the Department of Energy
in the disposal program would be returned to the vendor.
Now, generally, the canister internals in a waste
package are around $200,000 to a quarter of a million
dollars, so there is a lot of money involved there. This
could be returned back in the future. But the uncertainty
would be from a Wall Street investor point of view, how much
more does it cost me to go to a multipurpose canister and
what is the likelihood of my return on investment because
. 35
you really don't know if it is going to work until we go
through the licensing process with you on the waste package
internals and dealing with things, long-term criticality and
those matters that we do not know the ultimate answers yet
until we go through that process.
So we were trying to work it that way and let the
market decide on the risk whether to go with a multipurpose
canister or not. That is how we are trying to integrate it
in. Those are the discussions we are having with
Westinghouse within the confines of the existing contract,
that we could work out a structure that would be
appropriate.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Thank
you and your colleagues for a very informative discussion.
MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We will move on and invite the
representatives from the State of Nevada, Mr. Loux,
Mr. Frishman, also Mr. Stellavato from Nye County and
Mr. Bechtel from Clark County. If you could all come
forward, we will begin with the discussion from Mr. Loux.
MR. LOUX: Dr. Jackson, members of the Commission,
I am Robert Loux and I am the director of the Nevada Agency
for Nuclear Projects. The agency was established by the
Nevada legislature in 1985 to carry out the state's duties
. 36
and responsibilities under the NWPA and I have been the
agency's director since it was established and previously
ran the program from the governor's office prior to -- or
since the passage of the Act.
We certainly appreciate the opportunity to meet
with the Commission at the same time that the OCRW and
management is providing you with an update of its program.
It is our hope this will broaden the perspective from which
the Commission considers some of the issues which will come
before it in the near term.
As you correctly pointed out, our last
presentation was in September '94, shortly after the OCRWM
program, proposed program approach had been outlined with
the Commission. In 1994 in our presentation, we discussed
the topic of OCRWM's licensing approach relative to the
proposed program approach. With the issuance of the 1996
revised program plan, the issue remains the same. It
appears to us that the OCRWM intends to submit less than a
complete license application to receive repository
construction authorization.
The Yucca Mountain project managers have begun to
speak of the license application as "the initial license
application" for construction authorization with two
additional update license applications to follow, one to
receive and possess and one for repository closure. OCRWM's
. 37
statutory and regulatory basis for this approach was
recently outlined to the NRC staff and is attached to my
written statement in annotated form. And Steve Frishman of
my staff will discuss that with you at the conclusion of my
presentation since we think it is rather significant.
OCRWM's phased approach to licensing as contained
in the revised program plan is in conflict, in our view,
with the regulatory approach of Part 60 and this should be
studied very carefully. In Part 60, it is clear that the
Commission's disposal decision is to be made with the
issuance of construction authorization. Conversely, the
OCRWM licensing approach would have the Commission taking
incremental steps toward a disposal decision which would
occur after its review of the license amendment for
repository closure.
If this were to take place, the Commission's
determination of reasonable assurance of compliance with the
EPA standard would not be made until after as much as 100
years of repository operation and all the waste had been
emplaced. And let me just indicate from a public
perspective, I don't think there is a greater issue that
could impact public confidence in any sort of licensing
process than the program plan. Generally the view of the
public is that this is tantamount to essentially an
unlicensed repository during the first 100 years of
. 38
operation and they believe further this essentially excludes
them from the final disposal decision in the licensing
process and makes generally the licensing decision somewhat
of a moot issue in the sense that, after 100 years of
operation, their view is it is very unlikely this material
would then be somehow dug up and moved somewhere else if it
was found not to be in compliance with the EPA standard.
Since the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
nearly 15 years ago, the Commission has repeatedly reminded
the OCRWM that it must submit a complete and high-quality
license application in order for it to be reviewed in the
short time mandated in the Act. The Commission should
inform the program of its meaning of a "complete and high-
quality application" in accord with Part 60 as written.
The program also will be issuing a Yucca Mountain
viability assessment, as we heard about earlier, in
September of 1998. In our view, the Commission really has
no role in assessing the viability of the site since the
intent of the exercise is to inform an investment decision
regarding whether or not to pursue a repository development
at Yucca Mountain. Also, according to OCRWM, the viability
assessment is completely independent of regulation.
The Commission's sole responsibility regarding
viability assessment should be to decide the extent to which
it wants to review and comment on the design or performance
. 39
assessment reports as it does with all of the prelicensing
documents when participation is not required by law.
If the Commission uses the viability assessment as
an opportunity to make an early statement regarding the
sufficiency of information for a license application, it
will only serve to reinforce the widespread
misinterpretation that viability assessment is somehow a
statement of the suitability of Yucca Mountain for a
repository development.
Regarding OCRWM's siting guideline amendment, as
you are aware, in order for the guidelines or any subsequent
amendment to be finally promulgated, the Commission's
concurrence is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and
as a condition of the Commission's original concurrence. At
the time the Commission asked for its concurrence, which
according to the current schedules would be sometime prior
to February 1998, it is likely that there will not be a
final new EPA standard and there surely will not be a final
revision to Part 60 in place. In our view, the Commission
should withhold its concurrence in the guidelines until
these final rules are in place since unless the current Part
60 is used for a basis for concurrence, there is no basis
for the Commission's action and if the current Part 60 is
used, the decision will have to be reevaluated after Part 60
is amended to conform to the new EPA standard.
. 40
My final point today is that, given changes over
the last two decades in highway and rail conditions and
technologies and the ability of terrorists to willfully
disrupt transportation of spent nuclear fuel, the Commission
should consider opening a broad-based public review and
dialogue regarding spent fuel transportation risk both for
normal and non-normal conditions and events.
The existing cask certification standards and
criteria and safeguard regulations should be reviewed and
revised as necessary in the context of the outcome of a
public dialogue. Such a review is timely in that the large
numbers of spent fuel shipments could begin in the near
future, as indicated, if pending new legislation for interim
storage is adopted.
I thank you for the opportunity to present some of
our thoughts and observations to you today. After Steve
discusses quickly the attachment to my written presentation,
we of course would be glad to answer questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
Mr. Frishman.
MR. FRISHMAN: I am Steve Frishman.
I wanted to bring this to the Commission's
attention since this is very recent information from the
April 30 NRC and DOE management meeting. Those are meetings
that are held periodically at a level above technical
. 41
exchanges so that management can get at sort of technical
policy issues on a very regular basis, which we believe is a
good idea. It also becomes revealing sometimes when we see
handouts like this as part of the management discussion
between the potential license applicant and the regulator.
I wanted to annotate some of this primarily to
show that as we began to point out back in 1994, the
Department's view of the important steps in a licensing
decision appears to be very different from how we interpret
10 CFR 60 and apparently how the Commission has used its own
interpretation in such other rulings as waste confidence.
It has to do with when the disposal decision is made and
whether it is an incremental decision leading up or
incremental set of decisions leading up to something or
whether the decision at the time of construction
authorization is really the decision that must be supported
by reasonable assurance that whatever standard you set for
reasonable assurance.
What we see developing is that the standard of
reasonable assurance is expected by the Department to change
through time. That you start out with a lower level of
expectation and move up. This doesn't seem to be consistent
with the way 10 CFR 60 is written and I think was intended
to be written and has been used by the Commission in other
ways.
. 42
I guess to get the example of how the Department
describes its strategy, if you look at page 14 on how much
is enough, you see their description of the three levels,
what they call sufficiency, and levels of sufficiency is not
an issue in 10 CFR 60. You see, they call the initial
license application for construction authorization while
Part 60.31 speaks to a license application for construction
authorization.
Then if you go to the updated license application
for receive and possess, Part 60.33, doesn't speak to an
updated license application. It speaks to an amendment of
the construction authorization which was the original
decision of the Commission.
Then if you go further, you see the updated
license application for closure, once again in 60.51. It is
referred to as an amendment for closure.
If we move on to page 16, using the language of
Section 114, you see that in Section 114 it speaks to site
characterization information and preliminary engineering and
the rest of the phrase out of the act is engineering
specifications for the facility. Engineering specifications
denotes, to me anyway, something more than just a conceptual
rendition of a repository.
If you look down at the bottom of the page, you
see in the Department's thinking, engineering specification
. 43
has become preliminary design and that takes it even farther
away from what I would view as engineering specifications.
It is clear that the Department intends the design to be
evolutionary. They have already made it very clear that the
design at the time of viability assessment will likely not
be the design for a license application. And the design for
a license application, according to their own strategy, is
not going to be complete. If I recall the last discussion
that I heard, they were putting some level of percentage of
completeness on it for license application.
If we go to page 17, again, Part 60.24, the
Department is trying to sort of convince itself and others
of the case for the information that is available for a
license application will be whatever they have available.
Well, your Part 60 says information not available but
information that is reasonably available.
The significance of this is that if it is
information available, that would be DOE's judgment of what
should be available. If it is information that is
reasonably available, that's your judgment. So I think it
is important that this distinction be kept in mind because
you, as a regulator, should have the judgment on what is
reasonably available as opposed to what is presented in a
license application.
And in the second part of that, for 60.101, the
. 44
Commission did much more in 60.101 than just say that it
contemplates there will be uncertainties and gaps in
knowledge. This is an area discussing what it takes for the
amendment to receive and possess. And if you look at all of
the language of that particular part, you are speaking that
the Commission may take uncertainties and gaps of knowledge
into account, provided the Commission can make the specified
finding of reasonable assurance as specified in paragraph A.
Well, that was the reasonable assurance for a construction
authorization.
So finally we have what I think is maybe the most
interesting and the one that should probably draw your
attention most and that has to do with Part 60.21. If you
look at the text of Part 60.21, rather than the word
"study," it contains the words "research and development"
and if you apply this to a topic such as determining the
thermal design or the thermal loading design, there is a big
difference between study, because the drift scale testing
that si going on now really is an experiment and it is
intended to be a scientific and an engineering experiment;
it is not research and development.
So I think clarification on the part of DOE as to
your intent regarding the difference between study and
research and development in 60.21 is probably pretty
important because, ultimately, it may lead to a level of
. 45
information and also sort of a philosophical approach to
license application that will be very much at variance
between you and the Department. And I think the last time
we brought this up, the general and sort of informal
response to our concerns about DOE's view of phased or
incremental licensing decisions as opposed to what we read
in Part 60, the response informally was we don't really see
enough in DOE's written material to understand that that is
what they are trying to do.
Well, from our perspective, we think we saw enough
then. We have seen more and more and when I saw this
handout on April 30, I figured that this is probably maybe
the most important thing that we can show to you at this
point in terms of the possibility of a disparity between
your whole approach to the significance of decisions at
various steps throughout the repository development process
and the Department's idea of what those steps should be.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
MR. FRISHMAN: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, I am just a little
puzzled at your distinction between study and research and
development but I am not sure quite what the issue is there.
MR. FRISHMAN: The issue is that "study" implies,
in the context of this program, implies that you are still
. 46
in a site characterization mode. The purpose of site
characterization is to provide information for a license
application. Research and development is trying -- you know
you have a problem, trying to figure out how to, through
design and other types of experimentation, resolve a problem
rather than finding out what the situation is that you are
in in the first place.
We know and you have heard today that the thermal
testing information is certainly not going to be complete by
the time of license application. The intent is that it will
go on for more. And that is still in the realm of site
characterization.
If you are going to use the thermal output of the
fuel as part of a repository design, that is site
characterization. You should know what you intend to do on
the way into a license application as opposed to picking
some number and later, after a construction authorization is
granted in the context of the way we read 10 CFR 60, later
come in with numbers that may indicate you have a different
situation on your hands and maybe indicate that using the
thermal output is maybe detrimental to waste isolation as
opposed to positive to it in the long term.
So the distinction is that studies in the scheme
of the repository program, studies are site characterization
and it makes that one use of the word makes it clear to me
. 47
that the Department intends to continue what is really site
characterization under both the Waste Policy Act and Part 60
through the licensing process so that you don't have the
ability to make reasonable assurance decisions based on the
level of data that is necessary for those decisions.
I know it sounds esoteric. We have been talking
about this for a long time. But we also understand that the
Department is in a situation where it knows that it is not
going to be able to complete under other circumstances what
would have been called site characterization.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I am trying to
understand the significance of, in reading Part 60 as you
went along here, of your concern with regard to the
incremental approach. Because reading Part 60, it looks
like different words rather than initial license
application, updated license application, they use the words
"amendments" but it is clear that Part 60 as it currently
exists that there will be amendments at the point of receive
and possess and the point of closure.
So what point of significance are you laying on
. 48
the fact that they are not calling it amendments, they are
calling them updated license applications? Could you
explain that again?
MR. FRISHMAN: I guess it is back to incremental
in terms of levels of information that would be available.
What they are suggesting is that when the sequence from
construction authorization to licensee receive and possess
amendment for closure that there would be a building base of
information, not necessarily a building base of confidence,
as the rule seems to imply. It is that the standard of
reasonable assurance in the Department's thinking, what this
implies, would at each step be a result of new information
as opposed to confirmatory information.
So at the beginning, let's just put maybe
percentage numbers as an illustration. At the beginning,
reasonable assurance is 65 percent with the construction
authorization. Well, with new information, if you get to a
license to receive and possess, well, maybe it is 75 to 80
percent. Maybe with the amendment for closure it is up to
what I think the perception is, and this is not to put any
number on it because it is a whole qualitative thing, I am
just trying to show you a scale. By the time you get to an
amendment for closure, it might be at 90 percent. Whereas,
we view 10 CFR 60 as needing that 90 percent to start with
and additional information is confirmatory to give higher
. 49
confidence in that 90 percent, as opposed to an incremental
growth in what is an acceptable level of reasonable
assurance.
I don't think it is that subtle. We have been
discussing this for a long time.
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The words probably can
be interpreted in several ways. But at each point in the
process, again looking at Part 60 as it currently exists,
there is the condition that the Commission may include such
conditions as it finds necessary to protect public health
and safety, common defense and security, environmental
values. It sounds a little bit like you are arguing what
the license conditions should be and I am sure we will have,
if this moves forward, there will be a massive discussion at
each phase of the process as to what the license conditions
would be but what do you envision if this goes forward? Do
you envision greater license conditions early or greater
license conditions late in the process? That is built into
every license.
MR. FRISHMAN: Right, and we understand that. I
think from the outset what we are trying to do is make the
Commission's expectation for the license application, which
is the first license application not an amended one for the
license application, we want that to be -- the expectation
to be that that will be a thorough and as complete as
. 50
possible license application, meaning that it requires few
conditions, meaning that the requirements of the rule are
met as near as possible. So it mitigates the need for the
Commission to try to make up conditions to say, okay, well,
you are deficient here so therefore we expect at the next
step that you will have done more work to bring it up to our
expectation.
Well, the condition is only because they didn't
meet the expectation in the first place. Or there is
uncertainty that it will meet the expectation.
MR. LOUX: It assumes responsibility, the
Commission's or DOE's, to describe what those ought to be.
And under DOE's scheme, they believe it ought to be them.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: But I see three things that
seem to be nested in what you are saying. One is you are
saying to us you would like us to lay out more explicitly
what we mean by complete and high-quality applications and
what constitutes an application versus license amendments,
application for license versus license amendments. And that
we need to exercise care in terms of what is performance
confirmation versus continued site characterization.
Is that a summary of what your fundamental points
are?
MR. FRISHMAN: Yes, that is a summary.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Okay.
. 51
Well, I thank you very much. I think we will hear
from other representatives at the county level.
Mr. Stellavato.
MR. STELLAVATO: Thank you, Chairman Jackson and
Commission members. Last time we saw you, you had a hard
hat on going in the tunnel on the train and that's a
different environment than here.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You never saw me again.
[Laughter.]
MR. STELLAVATO: That was the only time I've seen
you was in the tunnel.
So we submitted a written statement but the
commissioners want to thank you, my county commissioners,
for the opportunity to make a presentation and I am not
going to read the written statement.
Since I am the on-site rep, I am going to try to
cover a little bit of our technical program and the first
overhead is up there and our technical program is designed
with this in mind, is it safe. And everything we do is to
try to develop information for the residents of Nye County
when they ask me questions about what the DOE is doing.
We addressed key issues that can affect repository
design and performance. We try to identify areas that we
feel additional work ought to be done in. We are evaluating
DOE's scientific program and then we are obtaining our own
. 52
scientific data to do an independent analysis of Yucca
Mountain.
Next slide.
The present program that we are working on is we
are going to continue our pressure, temperature and relative
humidity monitoring in the tunnel. We initiated a gas
sampling program last year in a hole called ONC-1 that Nye
County drilled in 1994 and this is one of the sources of our
data sets. And at DOE hole NRG-4 we instrument.
We have been monitoring the tunnel and the ESF and
a lot of the information I will present today is based on
the ESF data set for relative humidity, temperature and
pressure because it has a big impact on repository design
and the mountain performance and so I -- we have been
recording that data set since 1995.
Next slide.
Just a little background on Nye County's program.
We negotiated with DOE on-site protocols similar to the NRC
protocols with the DOE for on-site reps and we developed the
Nye County QA plan, since we are gathering data and if we
ever want to use it in a licensing hearing following NQA-1
criteria and for efficient data distribution we decided in
1995 to put all our data on a web site and I have the
address on there. All of our data is on there. Every month
we post a new data set. Anybody is free to come in, get the
. 53
data and do with it whatever you want.
We drilled, like I said, the ONC-1 hole in
December '94. That was a deep hole into the saturated zone.
Then we instrumented that hole and a DOE hole right along
the north ramp tunnel alignment. NRG-4 is about 50 foot off
the tunnel alignment. ONC-1, I have a map that later I will
show you, is located just off the south portal. So it was
down gradient and so we had two data points to look at
effects of the tunnel on the unsaturated zone at Yucca
Mountain.
Besides, ONC-1 has two probes that we monitor for
pressure and temperature in the saturated zone, packed off
so we can monitor effects of some of the pump tests the DOE
have done in the Seawell complex just southeast of the
track. And then the TBM data set is an important data set
and we were the first ones to monitor pressure, temperature
and relative humidity constantly. Every 15 minutes, we take
a reading since 1995 so we've got a complete record of the
mining and the ESF. This is an important data set because
it led us to some of these early interpretations that we
have gotten.
Next slide.
This is just a map of Yucca Mountain with the two
upper and lower repository blocks. But the main thing is
the tunnel alignment which is in red and now they have
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finished it on the south ramp. You can see ONC-1 is just
northeast of the south portal and right along the Bow Ridge
fault and then NRG-4 is just 50 foot north of the north
ramp. It was a very important data set that helped us
calculate and look at the permeability of the mountain,
large block permeabilities and by pressure responses in the
unsaturated zone.
Next.
Then from the data we collected, relative humidity
data and temperature and pressure data in the ESF, we were
able to calculate and get some idea on moisture loss out of
the mountain due to the ventilation system in the mine. We
simulated long-term repository ventilation effects from
thermal and vapor concentration gradients across the tunnel
as the TBM moved down the mining the tunnel. Let me go
back. The instruments were on the TBM itself so as the TBM
moved, our instrument package moved right along with it so
we got a record from the beginning all the way around the
tunnel, which is important.
As you can see here, this is the tail end trailing
gear of the TBM and we have three instruments located on
that trailing gear. You can look through and you can see
the tunnel at the end of the TBM. The TBM is behind the
person who took the picture.
Then from the pneumatic data that we collected in
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our two wells, that is that air pressure data in the two
wells, we could identify and see a rapid pressure response
in the subsurface as the TBM moved around the tunnel and in
ONC-1 we saw a pressure response two kilometers away as they
started down the main repository horizon. So this slide is
just a slide of ONC-1 and it is just a typical pressure wave
data set that we collected.
If you go to the next one, it is much more -- as
you can see here, not to go through a lot of discussion but
this is NRG-4 and a lot of discussion as the early barrier,
everybody thought the barrier of the Paint Brush tuff non-
welded unit was a barrier and we even pressed the NRC back
two, three years ago, the NRC staff on pneumatic pathways
issues and we had a workshop in Nye County and in Las Vegas
that we sponsored for the pneumatic pathways workshop for
the State of Nevada and Clark County, because we thought it
was a big issue.
As you can see here, the mountain does breathe and
as you are coming down to the lower probes at the top of the
slide, they are very subdued and very little response. As
it went through the Paint Brush tuff non-welded unit, you
can see what happened to -- that is a vertical bar -- you
can see what happened to the pressure response to our lower
probes in NRG-4. They started to respond instantaneously
with this surface pressure response. The surface wave is
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the bottom blue wave there and so through this we can
calculate some bulk permeabilities of the mountain based on
how fast we respond and the amplitude of that response.
So this is some of the data that went in with our
ESF data to come up with some ideas and some proposals. So
from the findings, we basically confirmed what I think
everybody knew back in the mid-'80s, that the mountain is
more permeable than they had anticipated. Any work in a
fractured system like this, it is very permeable and the
PTN, although it does dampen the pressure response and
probably does deflect some flow coming down to the
repository horizon, wherever it has faulted or fractured, it
is going to permit migration of percolation into the
repository horizon, as the chlorine 36 data has shown quite
dramatically.
Then the flux rates are higher than they had
predicted and .1 or 1 millimeter a year flux seemed
extremely low in the mid-'80s and as you see now in Lake's
presentation, we are looking at 5 to 15 and possibly higher
with focused flow in the fractures. So that has a big
impact on the model calculations and the transport
calculations.
Then the faults and fractures do act as conduits
for flow and we saw that because our hole ONC-1 was the
first hole drilled through a fault, one of the main faults,
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the Bow Ridge fault. We do see pressure responses in the
subsurface coming through some fracture set running from
across the TBM, the tunnel alignment, into the subsurface
and our lower pressure probes have shown our responses.
Next slide.
In all the indications we are looking at more
reliability, relying more on engineered barriers and
possibly less on geologic repository isolation and due to
higher flux rates, faster fluxes and a fractured system that
breathes and we knew it breathed in '82 and '83 from some of
the early wells, USGS 6 and 6S that were drilled back then
and the USGS talked about those wells would blow and they
still blow and suck depending upon barometric pressure.
So our data confirms that and we are looking now
from the amount of moisture we saw drying out and how open
the repository is, we have been looking at an open
repository concept that I think somebody needs to look at
and do some detailed engineering on because some of our
calculations have shown if you leave that repository open
and let it breathe naturally with the heat load that you are
putting in there, you are going to keep the repository dry,
you are essentially drying the mountain out from its own
thermal drive and you keep the canisters dry and the
temperatures are maintained low, just above or right around
ambient for a long period of time.
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Just a couple more slides here on this natural
ventilation. That slide needs to be turned another way.
The tuff cylinder is the repository. All right.
This is just a conceptualization of what we are
looking at. You are basically putting a heat source in the
tunnel and you have an exhaust shaft. Many old mines have
used this type of natural phenomenon for their own
ventilation. In some places, they would start a fire at the
bottom of a shaft to get the ventilation circuit going and
then you would maintain the natural ventilation. You are
basically doing the same thing, putting a heat source in the
mountain and it looks like right now it will drive its own
thermal and suck the ventilation circuit will be complete if
you just manifold it and get the air out.
So these are just a couple more slides on some of
our early runs and these are preliminary model runs that we
have done and we are in the process of writing some much
more detailed, three-dimensional model runs. But this one,
the saturation, and you see we started at 75 to 85 or better
saturations and with the open repository we can maintain
saturations below natural. And as you move away from the
tunnel alignment, where the canisters are in place, you are
basically driving the saturation form of the moisture out of
the mountain continually.
This is just the temperature curve. Again, you
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start out above this degree C and, as time progresses, you
are dissipating the heat with the natural ventilation.
So in summary, if the DOE are going to rely more
on engineered barriers, we feel that we would like to see
someone do some more detailed engineering than our staff can
do to just analyze or evaluate the phenomenon of open
repository concept. It will also maintain -- the canisters
will remain dry and you can get back in any time and do
something with the canisters if you need to.
But we realize that present law is to close the
repository sometime. I don't know how you handle that but
engineering wise we would like to see this concept at least
looked at an analyzed because I think it has some merit if,
you know, you are worried about repository performance.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You have propagated these ideas
to the DOE and to the Congress?
MR. STELLAVATO: Yes, we have talked to the DOE
about these ideas and the NWTRB, we have talked to them
about these ideas and we have not addressed the ideas of
anything, policy, but just technical analysis based on the
data we are getting.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus,
Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner McGaffigan?
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COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No question, really. He
answered it at the end. Current law does seem our
regulations clearly contemplate closure.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's why his committee talked
to the Congress.
MR. STELLAVATO: Yes, I am not proposing this.
What I am saying is someone needs to look at the engineering
aspects of this. This is not the policy right now.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: As Commissioner McGaffigan
said, I think in an earlier and different context, we are
creatures of the existing law.
Mr. Bechtel.
MR. BECHTEL: Madam Chair, members of the
Commission, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you
today and the Clark County Commission appreciates the
opportunity to provide input to your very important work
here.
What I would like to do, for the record, my name
is Dennis Bechtel and I am a planning manager for Clark
County Department of Comprehensive Planning, Nuclear Waste
Division. What I would like to do today, and I realize you
don't have a lot of time -- unfortunately, my presentation
didn't make it.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We noticed.
MR. BECHTEL: I did, though. So what I would like
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to do is maybe submit some formal comments when they arrive
to Secretary Hoyle.
What I would like to do is discuss briefly four
points. Since there are new members here, what I would like
to do is discuss briefly Clark County's interest in the
activities associated with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and
our involvement, describe particular concerns that Clark
County has regarding the Department of Energy's approach to
site characterization and viability assessment, to discuss
briefly the revisions that have been proposed to Title 10,
Part 2, Subpart J of the licensing support system, work that
we have been involved in as well as others, and to evaluate
the responses to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
strategic assessment and rebaselining report, which we
tracked.
Clark County has been involved in nuclear waste
activity since about 1983, me primarily. We were involved
for a number of years with the state of Nevada's program.
We were funded by the state. Then in 1987 with the
amendments act, Clark County requested and received affected
unit of local government status from Department of Energy.
I might add that there are actually 10 affected
units of local government, including Nye County.
Unfortunately, over the last two years the Congress has not
seen fit to fund our programs. Clark County and others are
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currently working on FY '95 money, if you can believe it.
At one time, I had a staff of about 17 people. Now we are
down to about four or five and we had a lot of work in
progress that we have had to kind of cut off. We are a
little more optimistic, maybe, that funding would be
available in '98 but we will see how that works out.
Clark County, you might wonder. Clark County, by
the way, includes the city of Las Vegas and has about 1.3
million people. It is the largest growing county in the
United States, I believe. Because of -- we are victims of
geography in a lot of ways. Although we are south of the
site a considerable distance, we are concerned that a lot of
the transportation decisions will go right through our
community. So transportation, as you can imagine, is an
issue of concern to our board.
We are also interested, we are a tourist-based
economy and how the effects of the transport of the material
primarily would affect people's decisions and desires to
come to Las Vegas, you might say.
Most recently, we have been concerned about DOE's
efforts to initiate and, say, privatize the transport of
nuclear material. We have a number of concerns with regard
to that. We feel in many ways DOE is abrogating their
policy responsibilities. It is not clear in our mind how
this whole thing is going to work.
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We as local governments would be first responders
if there is an accident and it is unclear how DOE and the
private sector would interact with local governments on
issues like -- you know, trying to work out routing,
emergency response issues, things like that. So I think we
feel there needs to be a lot more rigor when you are
considering a very sensitive program to transport material
around the country. I might add it is not just a Clark
County issue; that is an issue that would be of national
importance.
We are also very much concerned about the interim
storage legislation that has been proposed. I think we feel
that the -- that in the interests of reaching a time line
that things are going to get rushed, primarily with regard
to, you know, transporting the waste. And so we feel -- we
are concerned that in the interest of solving what we feel
is kind of a hypothetical problem at reactor sites, it has
been proven that material can be stored safely in dry cask
storage, that the transportation issues are not going to be
well thought out and there is going to be this rush to
judgment that may put the public around the nation at risk.
Other issues we are concerned about are just some
of the manifestations of DOE site characterization and
viability assessment program. One concern we have are the
proposed revisions to 10 CFR 9.60, general guidelines to the
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recommendations for sites. As you are aware, of course,
this proposal was brought forth December 16, 1996, and the
idea was to provide that a total systems assessment of the
performance of the proposed site to specific regulatory
design within the geologic setting of Yucca Mountain would
be compared to the applicable regulatory standards to
determine whether the site was a suitable for the
repository.
We have two primary concerns with regard to that.
DOE's proposals to deviate from Section 1.12(a) of the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act and a process that has been defined
by Congress to determine site suitability and as well from
our perspective of local government, the elimination of
several important pre-closure characteristics in the
proposed revisions. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as you
are well aware, in Section 1.12 established guidelines for
recommendations of candidate sites for site
characterizations. To quote the original 10 CFR 9.60, such
guidelines shall specify detailed geologic considerations
that shall be primary criteria for the solution of sites and
various geologic media.
It further states, however, that such guidelines
shall specify factors that qualify or disqualify a site from
development of a repository and we feel the objective, as we
understand it, was to examine those individual factors that
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could contribute to the failure of a repository to contain
these highly dangerous wastes from the public for thousands
of years.
Section 1.12(a) went on to specify certain
qualifying and disqualifying standards for a number of
functional areas including transportation and safety, which
of course is of primary concern to us.
It is interesting to note that DOE as late as
September 1995 felt that these standards were adequate and,
once again, I think our concern that the schedule being
proposed is driving a lot of simplification of very
important site suitability issues.
DOE, by moving, as indicated in their notice of
proposed rulemaking, is limiting the individual performance
measures given in 10 CFR 9.60. This, we feel, is in direct
conflict with, as I indicated, their September 1995
statement.
We are concerned about this because, as you are
aware, the qualification standards were divided into pre-
closure and post-closure areas and of particular concern to
Clark County are the socioeconomic and transportation
criteria noted in the current version of 9.60. For example,
the criteria for potentially adverse conditions states a
potentially adverse condition is one that could cause the
transportation-related costs and environmental impacts or
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risks to public health and safety from waste transportation
operations to be significantly greater than those for other
comparable siting operations.
Realizing that the original 9.60 was meant to
compare sites, I think it is our feeling it didn't
necessarily preclude an investigation of issues such as
these. And I think the larger issue, I guess, is while site
characterization is important, this is also taking place in
the context of communities and people. I think we felt that
the preclosure conditions spoke to those issues.
To go on, in the absence of standards and
regulations determined by the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, there is an uncertainty in understanding how DOE
can design a program and collect appropriate information to
determine site suitability.
There has been a great -- there will be a great
reliance on the use of models. The use of models to predict
the performance of a natural and engineered barrier system
for thousands of years into the future is, at best, we feel,
tenuous based on perhaps the inadequate availability of
information by which to calibrate and validate that model.
I have done some groundwater modeling in the Las Vegas
Valley and it is the old your answer is as good as the data
you put into it. So I think that is a concern that we
definitely have, that there is not enough time to gather
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that data.
Also a third issue to try to summarize, realizing
you don't have a lot of time here, with regard to the
proposed 10 CFR, Part 2(g), the licensing support system
issues, Clark County has been involved since about 1984 on
the original negotiated rulemaking on -- for the licensing
support system and more recently has been part of the
advisory board in evaluating the -- how this system could be
implemented.
We are currently reviewing the revised rulemaking
that was just recently released, so I have some kind of ill-
formed thoughts, I guess, on it. But a couple of things
maybe to present to you, a major concern with the proposed
rule, as we see it, change is the important structure that
appears to have been lost that would ensure data and
information relevant to licensing would be managed and
available to ensure the timely and comprehensive review of
potentially relevant information for licensing. I realize,
you know, the technology has improved considerably since we
were originally talking about this a number of years ago but
it is still a little uncertain, in my mind, how we are going
to be assured that data will be available in a timely way
and that all parties will be able to access that data.
One of the things that I see missing in the
revised rule that I think could maybe provide some rigor to
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that would be the retention of the licensing support system
administrator. I think you need somebody to -- in the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to manage the system. I think
that is very important. This function may, I realize, you
know, we are talking about a lot of data and but it will
probably serve as an auditing function if nothing else.
I think we don't want to get to the point where,
you know, licensing may take place and then realize we don't
have enough information or it is not organized in a way that
can be useful to all parties.
I think from a perspective of a small player in
this total issue, I think the addition of an administrator
would be essential to kind of level the playing field to
ensure that information is available for all interested
parties. I think also there has to be some consideration as
to how the public or citizen organizations in the case of
Nevada -- in the case of Nevada some of the rural counties
would be able to participate in the discovery and review of
licensable documents.
While new information systems may facilitate the
dissemination of information, there is a cost in obtaining
that and I think we need to make sure all potential parties
have the resources and the ability to be able to participate
in that. I think maybe that needs a little strength in the
proposed rule as well.
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On the plus side, we are happy the rule speaks to
the advisory committee. You know, I think the work of the
advisory committee with the assistance of, say, Chip Cameron
and John Hoyle, I think hopefully has been useful to the NRC
and to the process and I know from the perspective of Clark
County and I am sure the other affected counties, if they
are funded in the future, that we would like to retain our
ability to participate in that.
I think it is extremely useful. It is a good
reality check for NRC, I think, just on a lot of the -- you
know, where the rubber meets the road, I guess. You know,
the folks are going to have to live with this, potentially
live with this repository if it happens. So we think that
the advisory committee is a useful way to do that.
My final comments are with regard to the strategic
assessment rebaselining project and we would like to commend
the NRC and your leadership for, you know, bringing these
issues up. I think a lot of them required revisiting and I
think they are an important step in, you know, are we doing
things right now or do we have to do things differently.
I know there was an attempt to get the public
involved. Speaking as a person who has been in government
for a number of years, I don't know what the secret is to
get the public out sometimes but I do think if this -- if
you are planning more things like this in the future, I do
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think, and I spoke to this at one of the meetings, that you
need to hit the popular press more. I mean, people don't
read legal columns and stuff like that. That's true for
Clark County. We have the same notification requirements
but we need to make sure the public knows that something is
going on out there.
In our case, Clark County has a steering committee
made up of seven citizens and we have governments within
clark county, incorporated cities and what we did, we had a
subcommittee of that sit down and just look at the issues.
What I wanted to give was just kind of a public perspective.
In fact, the citizens were the only ones who
participated in my subcommittee but we submitted comments
and hopefully those were useful. We did get your summary
document and had a chance to look at that and I think our
citizen members were pleased that they, you know, were able
to provide some meaningful input to the process.
Your support of the DOE working group
recommendations, I think, was good. It actually went beyond
what we had recommended. We felt with all your many duties
and funding crush and everything, you were better off maybe
just kind of doing what you're doing. But I think it is
important for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to get
involved in as many oversight issues as possible, if only
for the reason because things radioactive, rightly or
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wrongly, are feared by the public and to know that an
important oversight body is watching that I think is good.
We were supportive -- we were hopeful that your funding
levels will be maintained so you are able to do all these
duties.
That's about all I had to say. And, once again, I
appreciate the opportunity to provide input to you all.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much,
Mr. Bechtel.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: I have no questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: My questions were more
or less answered.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I thank all of you
gentlemen. It has been very useful insight and input and we
will certainly take note of all of this as we shape our
process here.
I guess I would like now to call to the table
Mr. Arnold from the Las Vegas Indian Center, Mr. Holden from
the National Congress of American Indians and Mr. Eben from
the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.
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And since we don't know if the placards are
correct, maybe you could identify yourselves for us.
MR. ARNOLD: As much as I would like to tell you
that I am Robert Holden, I am Richard Arnold, to tell the
truth here.
[Laughter.]
MR. HOLDEN: I am Robert Holden, director of the
Nuclear Waste Program for the National Congress of American
Indians.
MR. EBEN: And I am Maurice Eben.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. So who would like to
begin?
MR. HOLDEN: Madam Chairman, Commissioners, if I
could, NCAI is a national tribal government organization
and, in deference to tribal representatives, I would ask
that Mr. Arnold and Mr. Eben proceed in that order, if
possible.
MR. ARNOLD: Thank you.
My name is Richard Arnold and I am Southern
Paiute. I am the spokesperson for the Consolidated Group of
Tribes and Organizations, which are a conglomeration of 17
different tribes and organizations that have historic and
cultural ties to Yucca Mountain.
What is very interesting in hearing a lot of the
dialogue and testimony provided this morning, because I
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think while a lot of what was directed at the science, there
also too is a human element.
For us, for the Southern Paiute People, for the
Western Shoshone People and for the Owens Valley Paiute and
Shoshone people, Yucca Mountain plays a vital role in our
culture and in our afterlife. It is something that is
viewed upon as being very historically important to us,
especially culturally.
We have been involved, actually, with the process
since 1985 and through a whole variety of activities
including literature reviews and cultural affiliation
studies to ensure or try to identify the tribes that had the
ties to the area. One of the difficulties with that,
however, is that for us as Indian people, we look at
ourselves as being interrelated all throughout the Great
Basin and so although I identified myself as Southern
Paiute, Mr. Eben who is Northern Paiute, we are all the same
so it is very difficult to try to distinguish those kinds of
ties.
The cultural affiliation study that was done
identified tribes actually that were not only in Nevada but
Owens Valley in California, which is in Inyo County in kind
of that strip there. Utah, in southern Utah, and then
northern Arizona, being the Kaibeb Paiute Tribe.
I think the main driver behind all this actually
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was the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, federal
legislation that allows us basically and guarantees us our
right to practice our religion and all of the other cultural
nuances that go along with that. Beyond that, there was a
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Although to date there hasn't been any burials found there,
it doesn't mean that they don't exist but, beyond that,
under that law, there are also items that are identified
under that as cultural or sacred items, items of cultural
patrimony and so there are currently those activities that
are going on right now in working with the tribes and trying
to identify those things so the tribes are actively working
in that respect.
There is also some executive orders that ensure
and require government-to-government relationships between
the federal entities and the tribal groups. Then, also,
most recently one executive order, 13007, that allows access
to sacred sites and there have been sacred sites identified
actually early on, even in some of the historic literature,
some of the sites that were used close by Yucca Mountain.
I give you all this information really only in
hope that it is kind of again helping you to understand
perhaps the position of the Indian people and showing the
human element to this.
What we have initiated, though, there have been
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some studies because, interestingly enough, when I look at
the scientific studies, and being brought up very
traditionally, I can also appreciate through our traditional
stories, there are a lot of similarities of things. We had
knowledge of underground water systems that people now talk
about. We have knowledge of so many different things.
But try to imagine if you will, English being my
second language, trying to describe radiation to somebody
that doesn't know the concept of radiation by the term
radiation. However, imagine trying to identify that, and
often times I act as liaison or interpreter of some of those
things. The elders were identifying it as an angry rock.
It doesn't matter what kind of cask that you
design, anger is anger and you put an angry rock inside of a
cask and it still remains angry. You bring it from another
area, you bring anger from another area into that. And to
some people that maybe aren't from the mind sets that the
three of us are, I think it may be kind of difficult to
understand. But it is something that is just as believable
to us as perhaps maybe your respective religions or values
would be. The same holds true.
We do hold tribal update meetings because we feel
that it is important to be involved in learning about the
updates of the project and so we have had that implemented.
One of the nice things we have, I have to say, is that we
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have been able to identify and recommend that there be a
preservation in place policy relative to artifacts, which is
very helpful to us.
However, I think, all too often Indian people are
oftentimes thinking that our concerns are just archeological
and so they see artifacts and they think of Indian people.
But they forget that we are human beings too and that we
have just as many concerns and similar concerns as what
everybody else does.
We have also done interpretative work and we do
make periodic recommendations to DOE at these meetings and
responses are given back to us. We are also very interested
and have been working closely in monitoring the progress of
the environmental impact statement and looking at how we are
going to have the concerns of the Indian people also brought
into that.
Just as I heard some of the other presentations
that were made, we as Indian people have the same concerns.
Transportation is a tremendous concern by the Indian people
and the Indian tribes. I think if you look at the
reservations within the state of Nevada and actually in the
Great Basin and even into the three surrounding states of
Nevada, that the tribes are in very remote areas.
Oftentimes they don't possess the necessary infrastructure
to host activities that would have them prepared for
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emergency response, for example. They don't have the
training. We heard about the affected counties, actually,
of some of the tribes. While that was, in all due respect,
nice for the counties to receive that, the tribes did not,
the tribes that were inside of those counties.
There are jurisdictional problems with that, as
you can imagine, because of the tribes' sovereignty and the
trust responsibility from the different agencies in trying
to work on those government-to-government relationships.
Funding, I think, is critical for us also in terms
of the preparation, response and oversight that is necessary
for the project and the magnitude of the project. But I
must also point out that since our last visit here, which
has actually now been a couple of years ago, some good
things have also come out from our previous presentation to
you.
Some of the things now that we are getting more
updates and things, however a lot of the paper becomes very
voluminous and we think of all the trees that are losing
their lives because of all the paper that is coming out but,
nevertheless, we receive the documents from the NRC and that
is very helpful. A lot of it is in very technical jargon
that sometimes is way beyond us and I commend the people for
writing it that have the command of those big words but, for
us, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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But I think there are, just in closing, a few
other things I would just like to touch on. One, I just
want to reiterate the trust responsibility between the NRC,
actually the Department of Energy and any other federal
agency or federal entity that would become involved that has
that responsibility to the tribes. The other is that if
funding is restored, I think the tribes need to definitely
be involved in that and not be left out of the loop.
I heard about the advertisement and that, too, I
think is something that is very critical in trying to get
people in public participation. One of the things that a
lot of the tribes have is either tribal newsletters or
newspapers and/or working through the National Congress of
American Indians is another good vehicle to get information
out to the tribes.
Then basically the last thing is that as,
basically, the oversight body, I think it is critical to
maintain your oversight and input into the process, just as
we would like to be involved in the process as well.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
I have less in the way of questions but rather to
note the points you have reiterated and also in particular
your comments relative to within the context of an EIS of
the transportation issues and how that might affect your
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communities as well as issues related to emergency planning.
I am very familiar with the executive orders relative to the
government-to-government relationship so I thank you for
bringing that to our attention.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, just one question.
Some years ago, there was a question about the ability to
access an LSS and to get the information and so on and so
forth. The NRC, as I recall, contributed some computers,
more personal computers to some groups. Do you have
anything to say about how effective that was, whether that
turned out to be useful and whether there was anything of
that sort in the future that you could suggest?
MR. ARNOLD: Sure. First of all, it was helpful
in those tribes that were able to access the computers.
Currently, though, what we are trying to do, and not to try
to downplay anything we are doing by any means, but I think
that oftentimes with some of the tribes and trying to keep
up with all the technology and things, sometimes we are a
few steps behind and that. So just in looking at some of
the situations now, just trying to access and get on the
Internet, for example, in some of the remote communities,
you then incur large bills by having long-distance calls
every time you are trying to access it.
So some of it has become cost prohibitive. So it
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was almost in one sense like a double-edged sword in that we
got -- some of the tribes got computers and that was nice
and they looked pretty. But then, you know, to then go
maybe to the next step.
So I think part of that could also be addressed by
either having a funding mechanism of some sort of some other
kind of computer support or somehow to access some of those
things. But definitely it is a way of trying to get
that -- a way of getting Indian people into the loop of
things, if you will.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
Commissioner McGaffigan?
COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Just on that last point,
we may need to get some T-1 lines. The modem is going to be
the limiting factor, it seems like to me, in this LSS
system.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I would like to thank you
again and to thank all of the participants.
Were you making a separate --
MR. EBEN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Oh, I am so sorry. I
apologize.
Mr. Eben.
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MR. EBEN: Thank you very much.
Before I start with our statement, a lot of it is
going to be repetitious for you, our tribe just recently got
pulled into this nuclear transportation issue and it is very
disturbing listening to Mr. Arnold. I have heard
Mr. Arnold's name for a number of years and I just met him a
couple of weeks ago, last week I guess in San Diego. And
that is part of our problem, is there are a couple of groups
in Nevada and we were totally in the dark when it came to
some of this information.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Actually it would be helpful, I
think, to us, in terms of interacting with the publics that
we need to interact with, if you might think about and
suggest a mechanism that you think would be useful for us to
be sure that we reach all populations we need to reach.
MR. EBEN: Well, I was going to suggest that with
the National Congress of American Indians, they were the
ones who basically helped us the most along with our
lobbyists and friends back here, Dorsey & Whitney. It was a
quick game of catch-up and then we were told we probably
will never catch up, so we just need to go on forward from
this point. And our issues out at Pyramid Lake are tied to
the water.
We have an endangered specie, it's the cui-ui,
Cui-ui-Ticutta and the ta cutta mean eater and the ta cai is
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a trout and that is the Walter River Paiutes and they have
been involved directly and indirectly.
I am going to go ahead and read my statement.
Good morning, my name is Maurice Eben. I am an
enrolled member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and
currently serve as a Tribal Councilman. Our tribal offices
are located in Nixon, Nevada. The Tribe appreciates this
opportunity to present our statement to the Commissioners of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation was surveyed
in 1859 and was confirmed by executive order in 1874 by
Ulysses S. Grant. The Tribe has been through many social,
economic and cultural changes since the reservation was
created.
Since time immemorial, we Indian People have had a
respect for the land that we walk upon. At no time has that
caretaking responsibility changed. Indian People are still
the rightful caretaker of this land. As we proceed and
continue our discussions from this day forward, we will
remind you of this responsibility and stand by the prayer
and sincerity to our Creator in allowing us to continue the
responsibility.
We feel that as our race, the four races on this
earth, that was our job and it hasn't been taken away yet no
matter what human beings say, so we continue on and that is
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what we need to remind you folks of, that is our spiritual
job.
I am a descendent of the two major tribes of the
Great Basin, the Cui-ui-Ticutta of the Northern Paiute and
the Timbisha of the Western Shoshone. The Cui-ui-Ticutta
are from the Pyramid Lake region of the Great Basin and the
Timbisha Shoshone of the Death Valley region of the Great
Basin.
Due to the Indian Reorganization Act, our parents
were forced to enroll their offspring with one tribe. My
parents chose my father's tribe. Although I was brought up
in Northern Nevada, we traveled to Death Valley on a regular
basis to enjoy my mother's side of our family. Both my
parents spoke their respective languages. Both my parents
attended the Stewart Indian School in Carson City, Nevada.
After my birth, I lived on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian
Reservation and as most families, we moved to the Truckee
Meadows where my parents could find jobs. Truckee Meadows
is where Reno and Sparks sits and it is a shared area with
the Washoe tribe, between the Cui-ui-Ticutta and the
Washoes.
The Reno Sparks Indian Colony sat on land donated
by a kind-hearted elderly non-Indian lady for the three
Nevada Tribes, Paiute, Shoshone and Washoe. The colony
residents were mostly related to each other or knew family
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from respected reservations or the Stewart Indian School.
We were brought up around great uncles and aunts,
grandparents and cousins to most degrees. The extended
family truly was a common part of life at the colony.
Fortunately for me, I was taught some of the Coyote stories
and legends of the three tribes from the Reno Sparks colony.
The Washoes are mostly from the Sierra Nevada Mountain area
with ancient ties to the Great Basin before moving into the
mountains. The Western Shoshone came into the Basin about
10,000 years ago in search of food. The Paiute people,
according to scientists, were in the Great Basin for about
15,000 years.
The 400,000 square miles is bordered on the east
by the Wasatch Mountain Range in Utah, the Snake River in
the north and the Sierra Mountains on the west and as far
south as the Mojave Desert.
The Timbisha people lived and died in the region
of the Sierra Nevadas to the west to as far as the Colorado
River to the east. Of course, I would be centrally locating
them in Death Valley, Death Valley being our winter home and
the Wildrose Mountains and the Hunter Mountain range to the
west of the valley and Beaty being north and Yucca Mountain
to the east being wintering homes.
Following the traditions of other Great Basin
peoples, burials took place on the eastern side of valleys
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and in rock crevices and in outcrops on the sides of the
mountains that at one time were islands in the Lahotan
Inland Sea. These burial caves are found throughout the
Great Basin and are known to grave robbers too. Mr. Jack
Harrelson of Grants Pass, Oregon, was one of those grave
robbers. He was convicted in the State of Oregon for taking
two bodies from graves found in areas of the Great Basin
which are similar to Yucca Mountain. As with the Southern
Paiute, the Timbisha share common cultural beliefs and
legends such as Coyote being the jester. The morals are the
same as both Northern and Southern Paiute.
Before the Euro-American arrived here, we were
just a People, as Mr. Arnold had mentioned. We were at
times I want to say borders of contention because we did
battle over certain areas and lives were lost but not in the
sense of warfare in Europe. Nobody lined up in rows and
chased each other. Sometimes a wounding of one person was
enough.
I would like to say for the record there is an
ongoing effort by many tribes to correct their histories.
In the past there have been some attempts to change tribal
history by a few misguided tribal members. This was done
with the thorough knowledge of a number of anthropologists
and ethnohistorians with only the publication of their work
in mind instead of accuracy and truth.
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You have to put in mind, when we were doing this
last night, I think I was still suffering from jet lag, so
there are a few words missing. It kind of threw me off.
So the process taken in identifying and notifying
affected tribes is purposefully flawed. There is a
concerted effort by federal agencies today to change the
history of the Great Basin People. The Bureau of Land
Management and the State of Nevada Museum have taken a
position that the first inhabitants of the Great Basin have
only been in the region for 1,000 years. There is no known
scientific data to support this theory. Nonetheless, they
are attempting to use their theories against us.
I would request that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission study all the ethnohistories for accuracy and
factual material. Without the truth from the original
inhabitants of the Yucca Mountain region is an insult to the
entire process. The history of the Timbisha People should
be studied very closely for its accuracy. Most important,
the archeologists doing the history of the Great Basin
tribes should also be investigated.
The changing of one spring, the name, could throw
the whole concept off. As most of you are aware, there is
the name, Tono Pah. The word Pah, it means water, no matter
what dialect you say it in or if you change it a little bit,
it just means water. In Tono Pah's case, it means bad
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water.
Cui-ui-Pah was the name of the Lahotan Inland Sea
before it was ever named, I guess, and Cui-ui being our main
food substance. And so you will find in the Great Basin,
pah, and it refers to water and, as Mr. Arnold had
mentioned, water is very, very important to our religion let
alone to us as a human being.
The history of our people in the Great Basin is
from oral histories and from scientific. According to the
time measurement of the Great Basin Curvilinear attributed
to petroglyphs found in the Great Basin, our people have
been in the region for up to 15,000 years. Many of our
ceremonies are the same and are practiced during the same
time of the year. The Cry Dance is done when a death occurs
and the meaning of the dance is the same with the Southern
and Northern Paiute. Legends of how the pine nut got to the
top of the mountains is the same with the same outcome and
meaning. The Park Service told the Indian People they were
no longer welcome to pick pine nuts in the Wildrose
Mountains and in 1944-1945, the site chosen by the People
was Yucca Mountain to pick pine nuts. The National Park
Service didn't want to assume the responsibility for the
Indian People back then. As a matter of fact, they wanted
our families to live in tepees although tepees were a Plains
Indian home. I think it kind of demonstrates the lack of
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knowledge during that time toward our people.
The commissioned a genealogy to be done to prove
that the Shoshone people weren't from that area and the
further it went back it proved that Great Pine Dog's family
did come from Death Valley so they stopped it and that stops
the process and we don't think that is really the right way
that our people should be looked at.
With most ceremonies, there comes a negative side.
I jumped ahead.
There is something I carry for our people and it
is some of the legends and it is this particular piece that
I am going to read is that legend and it was named the Ghost
Dance and it goes a lot further back than the 1870s but it
is written in this area of around 1870.
The story of the Ghost Dance and of Wodziwod's
vision. And as most people know, Jack Wilson or Wovoca is
always associated with the Ghost Dance because after
Wodziwod had passed away, Wovoca picked it back up and tried
to revitalize it.
But the gentleman, the man who did get the
original vision, was Wodziwod and he was from the Walker
Lake area.
The story of the Ghost Dance and of Wodziwod's
vision was one of many histories told to us by our elders
from the Paiute side. In this vision, he saw the return of
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our brothers who had traveled to the other side of the
world. As prophesied, our older brother was in chains, put
there by our little brother. They had new things we would
not understand. Their dance would help us as one people to
understand each other's ways.
The understanding of our mother earth would come
from the Red People. Should this dance be done correctly,
this dance would bring water in its many forms to cleanse
and bless us. Wodziwod's vision showed the dance steps and
the songs. The vision showed the clothing required to be
worn and what they should be made of, deer hide with long
fringe on the front of the shirts to shake off the sickness
and to be shaken through the fringe to the mother earth.
Those shirts have become what is called ribbon shirts now
and it has kind of lost its ceremonial value. You know, I
see basketball coaches wearing them. Maybe they're trying
to get some of that luck. I'm not real sure.
With most ceremonies there comes a negative side
and in this case the Ghost Dance, it was said that four men
would come out of the East who will turn our dance into its
opposite. Wodziwod's vision was one of love and peace. The
vision meant the dance would be turned into a war dance
which did happen and it led to Wounded Knee with the
massacre of an entire unarmed people.
Our dance would one day return and be brought to
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us by the ones who came to the Great Basin to get it. Over
the years, gifts have been sent to the Cui-ui-Ticutta and
the Tagi-Ticutta from the people who had taken our dance to
their homes. Seventeen years ago, our dance returned to the
Great Basin and was given to Stanley Smart, a Paiute,
Shoshone, Pit River lineage. The prophesy told the dance
would be given to a snake person, who we were before the
name Paiute was put on us. Wodziwod's vision is only a
piece of the total prophesy believed by us. It is believed
that when the four races return to the basket we will be
able to make the sound the Creator is waiting for us to
make. And I think, as many people are aware, there is a
movement toward Indian religion and right now we are waiting
and it is pretty hard. We have a lot of non-Indians coming
around us that are being shown by some of these misguided
tribal members. It is not that time yet but we are waiting.
The basket that we were created in is the Great
Basin. So the return of the other three races obviously is
happening and, you know, we are waiting for that time so
that we can train our brothers.
It is our understanding that since our creation we
have always followed the south end of the lake we call Cui-
ui-Pah, which is Pyramid Lake. Our culture is tied to the
ancient inland sea known as Lahotan Lake. 14,000 years ago,
the climate of the Great Basin was wet and full of lakes.
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During the Pleistocene Era, 1.8 million years ago, there was
over 27 million acres of lakes. Today there are only 2.5
million acres.
Five thousand years ago, the inland sea started to
dry up. The Lahotan Inland Sea covered the vast area of
8,000 square miles and was 900 feet deep. During the
drought period, the water slowly drained south and east. On
the east side of the many valleys, the sands were halted
which became one of the areas used to bury our dead. During
periods of high water, the cliffs exposed by the ever-
beating of wave after wave, the volcanic uplifts helped to
make natural burial chambers. These chambers were prepared
with loving care by placing mats made of tule reeds, food
stored in willow woven baskets, blankets made of rabbit
hides were made to keep the bodies warm. Clothing was made
for the journey home. The cave would be used, when it was
necessary, by placing another body on top of a previous
grave. This practice was used up until recently.
As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Harrelson, the grave
that he robbed came out of Elephant Mountain which is almost
identical to Yucca Mountain but in a smaller version. The
way the bodies were on top of each other, one being 2,500
years, the other about 1,200 years old. We have these type
of graves on our reservation in the same format that I just
read.
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The Tribe is currently directly involved with an
issue with the nuclear industry that includes the
Departments of Energy, Defense and Navy and the private
sector. The project is known as the Nuclear Weapons
Nonproliferation Policy Concerning Foreign Research Reactor
Spent Nuclear Fuel. This program will result in
transportation of spent nuclear fuel through our tribal
lands. Although it is known that transportation is an old
practice, the issue of involving our Tribe is new. As a
matter of fact, the record of decision was issued on May 13,
1996, but the Tribe did not receive official notification
from the federal government until January 1997.
Furthermore, we received a notice from the State of Nevada
on October 3, 1996, inviting the tribe to a meeting in San
Francisco to discuss shipment of foreign nuclear fuel.
The National Environmental Policy Act was
violated. No consultation occurred between the federal
government and the Tribe. Had DOE followed the spirit of
executive order 12898 pertaining to environmental justice,
they would have been on notice to at least contact the
Tribe. The DOE never did. At this point, we do not
visualize any consultation occurring in the near or distant
future. This treatment between two governments is all too
familiar. We request that the Commission seriously consider
and reconsider its authority which is vested toward federal
. 93
agencies responsible for carrying out the obligations of the
federal government.
When an Indian Tribe is affected either directly
or indirectly by any project involving the nuclear industry,
the seriousness of impacting the environment must be the
primary consideration and not secondary. This nuclear
energy and nuclear waste is not part of our Indian society
to which we belong. This makes it harder to understand and
accept. Although the science and technology can be taught
and shared, there is a fundamental an conceptual difference
that exists between natural law and the man-made written
laws. It is important to us to demonstrate to you that we
are unique but we do not feel any superiority to you. All
we expect is equal treatment from you just as you would
treat your relatives and families.
We would like to acknowledge the efforts of the
National Congress of American Indians over the years for
their monitoring of and providing education to Tribes on the
effects of nuclear waste. The Tribe is willing to work with
the federal government and its regulatory agencies to come
to a common understanding but only as long as the
consultation process is done fairly and legally. We will
support the NRC in its efforts in the development of an
Indian policy as other federal agencies have done in
compliance with the President's executive memorandum of
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April 29, 1994, to all heads of departments and agencies
regarding government-to-government relations with Native
American Tribal Governments.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
Commissioner Rogers.
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No questions.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
Commissioner Diaz? Commissioner McGaffigan?
Mr. Holden.
MR. HOLDEN: Thank you, Madam Chairman. And again
good morning, Chairman and Commissioners.
I was going to read a statement from the Nevada
Indian Environmental Coalition Executive Director, an inter-
tribal organization which many -- to which some of the
Nevada tribes belong and they were going to issue a
statement. But that did not arrive by fax last night. So
once I get that, I will certainly forward it to you and will
forward to you the written statement that I have. It is in
different pieces right now.
But thank you again for allowing me to be part of
this panel. NCAI is the oldest, largest national tribal
government advocacy organization in the country. It was
formed in 1944. The purpose was to offset attacks by
various jurisdictional entities, states, counties and in
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some instances the federal government who did not look upon
tribes as viable governments base don the treaties and
agreements that they had signed over 100 years ago, backed
by the Constitution and backed by Supreme Court cases. We
are, as I said, an advocacy organization and in instances
such as this we do represent some of those tribes who are
unable and do not have the resources to be here as well as
those tribes who may have the resources but asked us to
speak with them.
I want to thank the Department of Energy for its
cooperative agreement that we have, similar to an agreement
that the National Conference of State Legislatures, Western
Governors Association and similar organizations have. It
has allowed us to disseminate information, to conduct
meetings about the issues and concerns of tribal governments
and the native peoples and the denigration of their cultures
in many instances.
Unfortunately, that cooperative agreement has come
under the budget knife, as we all know happens, and we have
been cut two thirds a couple of years ago and are still
under a freeze and as you are well aware a freeze is the
same as a cut in each increasing year for funding impacts.
I also do want to thank the NRC and its staff for
working with the NCAI and working with tribal governments in
providing resources and information on its many programs.
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Some tribes have invited the NRC representatives to
community meetings, community presentations to talk about
the issues that fall under the NRC's jurisdiction. Mr. Chip
Cameron in the General Counsel's office has worked with us
on the LSS, as Mr. Hoyle, Mr. Greeves have been part of a
program that you referred to regarding providing computers
to tribes. Let me say that was greatly appreciated, as
Richard Arnold indicated. Let me also say, these were 386s
and exponentially the capability of computers has enhanced
and I don't need to say much more about that. But in terms
of those might be seriously outdated at this point. But we
do appreciate that effort when it came because that was,
honestly speaking, that was more than the tribes had at that
time so anything helps.
That is where we are coming from.
Much has happened. There has been much DOE
activity in the Yucca Mountain area since I was last here.
But unfortunately not much has happened in terms of tribal
resources and the ability to participate in the process.
As I said the last time I was here, in regard to
what Mr. Eben was stating, not being able to participate,
that is quite important in the cultural resources protection
area. Last time around we notified -- we had notified the
NRC that Yucca Mountain project officials were working under
a flawed cultural resources study that they had done by a
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non-Indian from the University of Michigan. Those concerns
seemed to have gone unheeded, even though as a cultural
workgroup, which Mr. Arnold is a part of, it has not always
been embraced by all of the tribes in that area and even
though respectful deference is given to those tribal
cultural people, it is the tribes to whom the federal
government has its trust obligation on a government-to-
government basis. So we would look for the federal agencies
to find some way to live up to that moral and legal
obligation to ensure tribal participation.
Impacted tribal governments may still opt to enact
transportation regulatory codes which will enable them to
participate and monitor transportation activities, though
there is significant federal preemption in these areas. The
stakes are too high for the tribes to be left on the outside
and no matter when they decide to avail themselves of the
process, they have the right to participate to whatever
extent feasible. The NCAI feels it falls within the trust
responsibility of the DOE to provide resources and
assistance if a tribe so desires.
As you have heard, some tribes may wish to
participate under the cover of an intertribal organization
such as the Nevada Indian Environmental Coalition. The
choice is that of the tribes. The NCAI still has on record
resolutions from the NIEC which asked us to provide
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information and work with those tribes within their
organization to monitor activities for them and to provide
them with updates from the various participating federal
agencies.
I must say that DOE has at times made attempts to
find resources for the tribes. Dr. Dreyfus a couple of
years ago met with tribal officials and the short story is
that nothing ever became of that. The Yucca Mountain
Project Office had funding available and then they didn't a
short time later. The came back to the tribe and said, yes,
we do, and then that was pulled back also. So it has been
sort of on a I yo-yo string as far as the tribes being asked
to participate realistically and then being denied. So that
is something we are dealing with. So there is a little bit
of mistrust on the part of the tribal governments and
rightly so if you can put yourselves in that position.
The State of Nevada and counties have received
impact dollars and the tribes whose land and cultures are at
risk are yet to receive funding and are unable to assess the
thousands of documents emanating from site characterization
studies and thousands more to come. They don't know if the
non-Indian scientific approach is sound or not. They can't
evaluate DOE's scientific programs. As a matter of equity,
as a matter of legal and moral obligations, we would urge
the NRC to implore the DOE to correct this longstanding
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error and provide resources to impacted tribes until there
is at least a funding level equitable to the states and
counties and that should be viewed only as the beginning of
the tribal participation in this process.
The funding we are suggesting is not special
interest or pork barrel project. In our mind, it should be
a staple within DOE program budget items, not only with DOE
but with NRC and other agencies across the board. This is
also not a matter of lobbying but an attempt to ensure
participation by the necessary parties. The federal
government should accept its role to provide assistance as
part of the trust responsibility under treaties and
agreements.
To go back to transportation for a moment, if I
could, in regard to spent nuclear fuels and radiological
waste shipments, we are urging the NRC to establish
protocols requiring tribal notification. I would point out
that many of the corridors through whose jurisdiction these
shipments traverse or will travel in the future are coming
from near ground zero in regard to readiness to respond to
radiological transportation accidents. We all know that it
takes years for an emergency response organization to reach
a state of readiness. We, along with the tribes, have made
the DOE aware that the tribes retain the jurisdictional
ability to enact hazardous materials transportation codes
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and may opt to exercise this authority.
The NCAI is working with DOE transportation
external coordination work group and within that group have
urged funding and training and technical assistance to
tribes and tribal responders but this has not really reached
what is necessary to bring tribes in regarding emergency
response activities. Once again, the State of Nevada and
counties have received impact dollars and the tribes whose
land and cultures are at risk have yet to receive funding
and are unable to assess these documents. So we just wanted
to reiterate that.
This is quite important because it is not you and
I and the DOE who have so much at stake and the word
stakeholders is an understatement in this instance. Their
homelands are being altered at this very moment, altered to
a state which, based on the work done, is not recoverable
for many generations.
You and I will go home tonight and perhaps file
these papers and our thoughts away for the time being but
these people will return to their homelands and will wake up
every morning and wonder the fate of the birthplace of their
culture where their Creator placed them.
There is a limited opportunity to carry out a fair
and just policy and implement decisions which enables them
to protect and preserve their homelands and birthright and
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to maintain their way of life. But they and their progeny
will look back on today as just another instance when their
message went unnoticed.
I appreciate this opportunity.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
Commissioner Rogers?
COMMISSIONER ROGERS: None.
CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus,
Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner McGaffigan?
Well, I thank each of you and all of you for your
input. I take note of what I have heard, which I always
feel is useful to play back and that is the need for
cultural understanding. The cognizance of our
responsibilities under the various laws and executive
orders, the special sensitivity to transportation issues,
the need for consistency of interaction, the need for access
to information, including the use of information technology
and the issue of funding. We are probably in the same boat
you are as far as that is concerned.
I thank you again. I also thank the
representatives from the State of Nevada and from Nye County
and Clark County and, of course, the representatives from
the DOE. As you know, we are briefed regularly by our staff
and other organizations involved in the high-level waste
area. But hearing directly from all of you is helpful to
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the Commission as we determine the status of DOE's efforts
and the direction of our own program.
The statements of all of the participants in
today's briefing and in the discussions surrounding the
statements, you have described the issues and concerns that
all of you have, which overlap but are also unique to each
group associated with the high-level waste repository
program. It is important that we continue to maintain clear
communications between, obviously, DOE and NRC but among all
the affected parties so that we can use the resources
available appropriately and carry out an effective program.
Again, the Commission thanks everyone very much
and, unless there are further comments, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the briefing was
adjourned.]
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