[NukeNet] Court Rejects Nev. Yucca Mountain Appeal

[Bill Smirnow]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
   Court Rejects Nev. Yucca Mountain Appeal
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 9, 2006
Filed at 12:15 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nevada was dealt a blow in its
effort to avoid a radioactive waste dump Tuesday
as a federal appeals court turned aside arguments
against transportation plans.

Nevada contended that the Energy Department
overstepped its authority and violated
environmental rules in deciding to rely mostly on
trains to take 77,000 tons of commercial spent
fuel and high-level defense waste from sites
around the country to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
north of Las Vegas.

The state also raised a series of technical
objections to the department's selection of the
319-mile Caliente Corridor -- stretching from
Caliente near the Utah border to Yucca -- as its
preferred route for getting nuclear waste to the
dump once it reaches Nevada.

''We conclude that some of Nevada's claims are
unripe for review and the remaining claims are
without merit,'' said a decision written by Judge
Karen LeCraft Henderson for a three-judge panel of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit.

''We do no think that the inadequacies to which
Nevada points make the (Final Environmental Impact
Statement) inadequate,'' the opinion said. ''The
DOE's selection of the Caliente Corridor therefore
was not arbitrary or capricious.''

Energy Department officials welcomed the decision.

''The court's ruling today upheld the
transportation aspects of the department's
comprehensive environmental impact statement for
the Yucca Mountain project,'' said spokesman Craig
Stevens.

Joe Egan, an attorney for Nevada, said the state
was considering whether to ask for a rehearing.

''It just looks to us like the court didn't want
another anti-Yucca decision here. They really went
out of their way to pound this decision into DOE's
favor, in our view,'' Egan said.

The same court dealt a setback to Yucca Mountain
two years ago by throwing out the government's
radiation safety standards for the dump. The
Environmental Protection Agency still is rewriting
those standards.

The court didn't address some of Nevada's
underlying arguments, saying the time was not
right for review as aspects of the Energy
Department's waste-transport plans aren't final.

Egan also said that some of the ground covered in
the lawsuit may be moot because the Energy
Department already has changed some of its plans,
including announcing a new multi-use canister for
waste transportation that will require separate
environmental reviews.

The department also is considering reviving a
possible alternative to the Caliente Corridor
because the Walker River Paiute Tribe, which has a
reservation in the western part of the state,
recently withdrew its long-held opposition to
hosting a rail line for waste.

The challenge to the waste transport plan was just
one avenue Nevada is pursuing against the
long-delayed Yucca Mountain project, which is now
scheduled to open in 2017 -- 19 years late. The
state is ready to challenge the Environmental
Protection Agency's new radiation standards as
soon as they're released, and it has sued over
Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule-making on the
dump.

Nevada's congressional delegation, led by Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also takes
every opportunity to cut funding and create
political hurdles.