Feds pull water applications for Yucca rail line

Written by jrood

In what is the strongest sign to date that it will abandon the Yucca Mountain Project, the Department of Energy on Feb. 9 withdrew 116 water applications it had filed with the Nevada State Engineer for building a rail line to haul nuclear waste to the mountain from Caliente, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

"This is the first
card in hopefully a domino of cards that is ready to fall," said Nevada’s
Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams.

She leads the state’s legal
effort to block DOE from obtaining water for the project, both for the proposed
rail line and for constructing and operating a repository to bury 77,000 tons
of highly radioactive waste in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"I’m really happy
about it, but we need to make sure it’s really in the grave. The next telling
thing will be the motion to withdraw the license application," Adams said.

She expects the appeals the
federal government has pending in federal court over constitutional issues with
Nevada’s denial of water for constructing and operating a repository will be
dismissed.

The letter dated Monday
from DOE Federal Project Director Ned B. Larson to State Engineer Tracy Taylor
said the department does not intend to pursue the Caliente rail line water
applications "in light of recent developments."

The
"developments" stem from the Obama administration’s plan to zero out
funding for the project and Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s announcement last
week that the department would withdraw the license application within 30 days.
A review of the license application by nuclear regulators has been suspended
temporarily.

DOE filed the Caliente rail
line water requests on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was sworn in as
president. Nevada filed its protests on April 1.

Bob Conrad, spokesman for
the state engineer’s office, said Larson’s letter was received by acting State
Engineer Jason King because Taylor is on medical leave.

Of the applications, 103
were for temporary wells to build a rail line through a 319-mile corridor from
Caliente west to Yucca Mountain. The remaining 13 applications were for
permanent wells to maintain and operate the rail line, which would funnel
nuclear waste shipments mainly from states in the East and Midwest.

Bruce Breslow, executive
director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects and an opponent of the Yucca
Mountain Project, said the state wants Chu to declare the site unsuitable and
withdraw the license application with prejudice so that it will not be refiled.
He said that Congress probably would not act on Obama’s budget recommendation
to zero out funding until after the fall elections.

"This is another step
toward ending the misguided Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
project," Breslow said in a statement. "We are awaiting DOE’s motion
to withdraw the Yucca license application ‘with prejudice,’ and hope that the
Construction Authorization Board rules quickly to dispose of the
application," he said.

Yucca Mountain is by law
the only site being studied for a national nuclear waste repository although
Obama has fielded a commission to chart a new course for dealing with nuclear
waste that does not include Yucca Mountain.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
released a statement saying, "This is another important step toward not
only killing the dump, but also making sure it can never come back to
life."

Reid has sent a letter to
the Government Accountability Office asking the agency to examine alternatives
for the Yucca Mountain site.

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