2.  The Yucca Mountain Legacy Project

The Yucca Mountain Legacy Project is a stakeholder effort to identify and address critical gaps in the protection of health and habitat in the bioregion surrounding the proposed Yucca Mountain High Level Nuclear Waste Repository.  This includes Nevada, California, the Timbisha Shoshone tribe, and treaty lands of the Western Shoshone Nation.

Unlike other Department of Energy facilities in the United States, at Yucca Mountain the opportunity exists to record detailed technical data about the condition of the area now, before high-level nuclear waste is brought on site and new contaminants are introduced. 

HþME posed this simple question to many people: “Given our unique situation, what should we be doing now to protect our future generations, which no one may be thinking of?”  

2.1  Phase I: Groundwater Chemistry and Baseline Data

Based on responses from scientific experts and members of citizen advocacy groups at other DOE weapons facilities, we have identified a series of essential steps.  In light of the reasonable expectation that groundwater will be the primary path for radionuclide migration off-site, our first priority was establishing a baseline for key water-born contaminants in the closest accessible off-site locations for comparison to future water supplies.  

2.2  What The Health Baseline Study Will Accomplish

HþME’s purpose is to:

1. Offer the downgradient community current chemistry data about their drinking water;
2. Establish a sound technical baseline so that in the future the problem is quantifiable;
3. Set a precedent for ongoing isotopic water analysis so that impacts are predictable and therefore preventable;
4. Provide a working model for other communities and groups who may face similar circumstances if DOE moves forward with new nuclear weapons, reactors or waste facilities.

We are providing concerned residents with more detailed information than has been available so far about the existing quality of their drinking water.  We are also providing future generations with important tools to safeguard their health from potential exposure to radionuclide contamination and subsequent impacts on habitat and health. Future generations will be able to discern whether contaminants from Yucca Mountain and/or the Test Site are reaching their water supplies.  This is important to estimate exposure and dose reconstruction.  Even more important is establishing a precedent for concern, to ensure that an ongoing sampling and analysis regimen is installed that would provide early warning and allow for needed remedial action, thus preventing contaminant induced illness.

2.3  Why Water Chemistry Baseline Data Is Important

The Yucca Mountain Repository provides a unique situation, in terms of health and habitat safety. Most nuclear site communities never had the opportunity to establish baseline or background data before contaminating activities occurred.  This region is poised between nuclear eras.  The Yucca Mountain area rests between two other potential radioactive contamination sources covered in detail in this report: The Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site (NTS) to the north and east, and the US Ecology low-level nuclear waste and hazardous materials site to the west. 

This region has already absorbed the unprecedented burden of 1,021[1] detonated nuclear weapons at NTS since January 27, 1951, classified by the U.S. government as 928 separate tests.  According to researcher Vernon Brechin, over 14 million tons of melted, fractured tuff surrounding individual bomb blast sites should be minimally classified as low-level or transuranic nuclear waste[2] (see table 12.2).  At US Ecology, studies identified off-site migration of tritium as early as 1982[3].  The area is now proposed to additionally entomb the nation’s burden of high-level irradiated reactor fuel and military waste. 

Past nuclear testing and other existing contamination must be factored into any future risk scenarios. Future contamination will be the result of:

·         the movement of existing contamination to new off-site areas,

·         the introduction of new contaminants from new sources such as Yucca Mountain,

·         a combination of the two.

If contamination is detected in the region in the future, without accurate baseline data to determine what is from other sources and what may be from Yucca Mountain, no meaningful risk assessment or dose reconstruction can take place.