Nevada Files Yucca Lawsuit

Nevada Files Yucca Lawsuit

Sep 10 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

By STEVE TETREAULT

STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Attorneys for Nevada opened a new front against the Yucca Mountain Project on Wednesday, suing the Energy Department over its plans to ship nuclear waste on a railroad to be built through rural Nevada.

DOE failed to perform adequate environmental studies before identifying a preferred 319-mile railroad corridor from Caliente to the Yucca site in Nye County, the state charged in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Additionally, the state contended DOE unlawfully designated itself as the lead federal agency to develop the railroad when such powers reside with another agency, the Surface Transportation Board.

That decision shut out independent regulators, the lawsuit said.

A third issue in the 19-page filing says the department revived a backup strategy of loading railroad cars with nuclear waste casks designed to be carried by trucks, after initially rejecting the idea as being impractical and the most expensive, and "having the highest estimates of occupational health and public health and safety impacts."

"It's uncanny how DOE manages to do precisely the wrong thing," Attorney General Brian Sandoval said. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the state is exposing the Caliente rail line as a "billion dollar boondoggle."

An Energy Department spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit, which contains complaints that Nevada officials have raised since DOE began unveiling its Yucca transportation strategy last December.

Answering the previous criticism, DOE officials have said their actions are legal and proper.

The legal challenge to DOE's transportation plan is the eighth lawsuit the state has pressed against the proposed nuclear repository since the project began taking its current shape in 2001, according to the state's attorneys.

Six of the cases were consolidated and heard by the court in January. In July, judges issued opinions on those cases, with the government prevailing on most but losing a key ruling against a radiation benchmark that is causing DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency to re-evaluate repository safety standards and likely form new ones.

The EPA said in a statement obtained Wednesday it has no plans to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling on Yucca radiation standards, echoing the position that Energy Department officials have expressed in recent weeks.

A Nevada lawsuit filed in March over federal aid for the state to continue monitoring the Yucca program is scheduled to be heard in January.

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