Judy Treichel with Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force has drafted a letter to the NRC’s Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) panel presiding over the Yucca Mountain dump proceeding. Her letter expresses support for the State of Nevada’s Motion to Strike DOE’s effort to certify as complete its document submission to NRC’s “Licensing Support Network” (LSN) leading up to DOE’s license application. Judy is hoping that each of our groups will submit this letter to the NRC ASLB in support of the State of Nevada’s efforts to block the Yucca Mountain proceeding from moving ahead at this point.

 

DOE previously attempted to initiate its application proceeding in 2004, only to have Nevada move to strike DOE’s document submission certification. The NRC ASLB agreed with Nevada at that time, rejecting DOE’s certification and returning DOE’s document submission as incomplete. The ASLB’s rejection of DOE’s document certification three years ago set back the Yucca licensing proceeding significantly.

 

DOE is yet again attempting to jump start the licensing proceeding, rushig to do so by June 30, 2008, before Bush leaves office. It’s critical that we expose DOE’s document submission certification as again incomplete, despite its huge size (30 million pages). For example, the repository design, and draft application itself, are not there yet. It’s impossible to prepare intervention contentions without such key documents, so NRC must stop this rush job yet again. In fact, the 30 million pages is at least in part an attempt to flood dump opponents, including Nevada, with documentation, making it difficult or impossible to weed out irrelevant information to get to the heart of technical matters.

 

Please send the NRC ASLB a letter supporting NV’s motion to strike. This needs to happen as soon as possible. I’ve pasted Judy’s draft letter in below. Simply put in your group’s name at the top, add your signature and contact information at the bottom, and email the message to PAPO@nrc.gov. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at my cell phone below (as I’m on travel).

 

Thanks!

Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912

Office phone: (301) 270-2209
Cell phone: (240) 462-3216
Fax: (301) 270-4000
kevin@beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org

 

Thomas S. Moore, Chair

The (name of group) supports the State of Nevada’s Motion to Strike the Department of Energy’s certification on the Licensing Support Network (LSN). At this crucial time, leading up to a possible license application for a Yucca Mountain repository, our organization is working to understand the basis for decisions and actions being taken by the Department. Our primary source for information is the LSN. If the State of Nevada is encountering problems using the system, with the expertise and resources that they have, our efforts will surely be overwhelmingly difficult.

The Department of Energy, by their certification, assured other parties to the presumed licensing process, interested organizations, and the general public that all of their non-safeguarded Yucca Mountain documents were available and discoverable. Surely if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process is to be open and transparent to the public, the documentation backing up the decisions must be available through normal search procedures. This is not the case.

Sincerely,