SUMMERLIN, NEV. — Advocacy in Washington for a consent-based approach to siting a permanent repository for the nation’s nuclear waste is only a political football that stalling “meaningful” progress towards a disposal solution, an official from the county hosting the moribund Yucca Mountain repository said here this week.
“I believe we’re at a point where we know how to move forward in the regulatory process,” said Leonardo Blundo, nuclear liaison commissioner for Nye County, Nev., at the opening panel Wednesday for the annual RadWaste Summit organized by ExchangeMonitor.
The consent-based siting approach for nuclear waste disposal, which has again garnered attention in both Congress and the White House lately, “is another form of stalling forward progress and safe, meaningful nuclear waste storage or reprocessing,” Blundo said.
The Department of Energy and energy secretary Jennifer Granholm have put consent-based siting at the center of their talking points about nuclear waste disposal. DOE is expected to soon put out a request for information that, in May, Granholm said would “start that conversation with communities” about consent-based siting.
In Congress, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bill in September that would create a mostly non-federal task force to, among other things, create a solid definition for the term.
The president of Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS), David Carlson, said Wednesday that consent-based siting in practice is complicated and may even be “impossible to achieve.”
“[I]t sounds good to hear somebody say: ‘consent based siting, we should do that,” Carlson said. “But what are the details of it?”
“If we’re trying to go through the consent-based way,” Blundo said, “it’s just going to open a can of worms. Are we all committed to going through that process and, in my opinion, almost start over?”
Blundo emphasized that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is clear about where the nation’s nuclear waste should go. “Where does the law say it goes? It goes to Yucca Mountain,” he said.
Nye County is the home of Yucca Mountain, the planned permanent nuclear waste repository laid out in the NWPA. The site has yet to be licensed, built or receive a single waste shipment, though — the Barack Obama administration bottlenecked funding for Yucca’s license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Conference in 2011 and since then it’s failed to get federal cash for anything more than guns, guards and gates.
Instead of getting wrapped up in a discussion about consent, Blundo said, “Congress, within its authority, needs to act and address America’s nuclear waste issues with a solution forward — no more political paralysis.”
“[E]ither we’re going to follow the law of the land,” Blundo said, referring to the NWPA, “or a change has to be made.”
As for Nye County, Blundo said, “one man’s trash is another man’s gold.”
“We support receiving and being compensated for safe high level nuclear waste storage and reprocessing in Yucca Mountain,” Blundo said.
