6.  The Yucca Mountain High Level Nuclear Waste Repository

The proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository is located in southwest Nevada, just north of Death Valley National Park, and 17 miles from the California border (See Figure 4.0.1).  Since 1987, its proposed purpose is to contain 70,000 metric tons of used commercial reactor fuel rods and military high-level nuclear waste in below ground tunnels.[1]  If Yucca Mountain becomes the nation’s High Level Waste (HLW) repository, there is a possibility that the groundwater under Yucca Mountain will become contaminated with radionuclides.  Large uncertainties exist as to when these radionuclides will appear in drinking and irrigation water wells.^[2]  Even within the parameters of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing process, uncertainties could still remain large enough to warrant concern for future generations.^[3]  This is particularly germane, due to the ‘first of its kind’ nature of the Yucca Mountain Project, where unanticipated Earth processes could arise, impacting the rate of radionuclide release over the one million years of regulatory concern.

6.1  Potential Impacts on Health and Habitat

Although the waste storage method proposed for Yucca Mountain is called “Deep Geological Burial”, actual calculation of the height of the mountain and the depth of the tunnels shows that waste storage will be approximately 1,000 feet above the heads of nearby residents and farms in Amargosa Valley.  There are at least 33 known earthquake faults within the study area for the repository, with at least two of the faults actually cutting through the proposed repository site.^[4]   To date, much uncertainty still exists about the combination of heat (generated from nuclear waste) and humidity causing additional fracturing of the rock over time, leading to possible escape pathways for water-born contaminants to the communities beyond[5]. 

It has already been demonstrated to the best of DOE science, and independently verified by the State of Nevada, that Yucca Mountain provides less than 1% containment of the waste over the current 10,000 year licensing period.^[6]  Premature container failure could result in the contamination of aquifers down-gradient of the proposed repository. Current calculations estimate that once the waste containers have been breached, radionuclides could be expected to reach regional wells within 500 to 1,000 years.[7]  While the DOE claims the waste will be retrievable for at least the first 300 years after waste emplacement, there is no planned procedure for retrieval once the repository is sealed[8].  Despite the DOE’s plan for ongoing monitoring after closure, once monitoring equipment in Yucca Mountain fails, there will be no warning of container failure until radionuclides are detected 18 kilometers offsite, at the point of compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) exposure standards.  There would be no recourse to arrest the problem.

Until recently, the area had a relatively low population density.  However, Las Vegas NV, about 90 miles away, is now the fastest growing city in the United States. Pahrump NV, about 40 miles away, is the fastest growing rural town.  All this growth requires water, and the most plentiful water in question comes from aquifers in the Yucca Mountain area. In fact, in the next few years, water grabs in the region are likely to be the hottest political issue.

6.2 Additional Impacts from Heavy Metals in Waste Canisters

An additional concern at Yucca Mountain is the heavy metals introduced into the biosphere from canister corrosion.  The proposed waste packages have been designed with an inner layer of stainless steel and an outer layer of complex nickel-based alloy (Alloy-22) to prevent corrosion for as long as possible.  However, when corrosion does ultimately occur, enormous amounts of heavy metals will be released (see Table 6.2), followed by radionuclides from the degrading fuel assemblies.  The combination of these metals with radionuclides should be considered as a Mixed Waste problem under U.S. law, according to Dr. Jacob Paz, who has researched this issue extensively.^[9]

Table 6.2  Metals of Concern in Waste Canisters

These figures do not include the additional Titanium Drip Shields proposed to cover each canister.  Dr. Paz also questions the validity of DOE sorption data on how rock, clay and soil will react to radionuclides, if heavy metals have already been deposited, and how they will react in combination, in the ground and in the groundwater.  The Yucca Mountain Final Environmental Impact Statement does not address this issue, or what the potential health impacts could be.  Furthermore, new proposed DOE canister design would double the thickness of the canister from 1” to 2”.  This would double the amount of heavy metals to be deposited at Yucca Mountain to about 300,000 to 400,000 tons.[10]

6.3  Potential Impacts on Inyo County, California

Impacts on California, only 17 miles away, have not been researched by the DOE. Although water is likely to be the primary method of transport for escaping radioactive particles over time, and surface and groundwater flows south and southwest into California, the repository site has been mainly characterized as a Nevada concern.

Yucca Mountain is centered between the two main branches of the Amargosa River watershed (see Figure 4.0.2).  Fed by hundreds of springs along the way, including Oasis Valley and ash Meadows, the Amargosa River flows year-round along some segments in both Nevada and California[11].  Below ground surface, groundwater flows in the alluvium that the river has deposited over many millennia. Local residents believe that large channels exist through the western portion of the Amargosa Valley, and three different well drillers tell of losing bits into unexpected voids and never recovering them[12].

Surface water travels south directly to California via the Amargosa River drainage, and then doubles back near the Dumont Dunes north of Baker to head north into Death Valley.  Finally, it sinks into 9,000 feet of alluvium or evaporates in the Badwater Basin, Death Valley’s lowest point.  Groundwater flowing beneath Yucca Mountain is thought to reach California more directly, by traveling southwest underneath the Amargosa Valley and surfacing in a range of springs on the southwest flank of the Funeral Mountains (see figures 4.0.2 and 4.1.1).[13]  California’s Inyo County has been conducting studies to determine direction of water flow through test wells and springs. To date, water chemistry studies has served mainly to identify flow paths.  Isotopic testing for possible radionuclide contamination from the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, immediately east of Yucca Mountain, has been minimal.

6.4  Additional Related Environmental Justice Concerns

6.4.1  Possible Degradation of Western Shoshone Homeland and Natural Resources

One of the key issues to be addressed when the DOE does apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a license to operate the Yucca Mountain Repository, currently scheduled for 2008, is the issue of land title, or the legal right to use the site.  This land is within the boundaries of the Western Shoshone Nation, recognized and ratified by the United States Congress in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.  Our cover photo includes Shoshone girls at an annual spring renewal ceremony, still held each year on the western flank of the mountain.  The Shoshone name for the mountain means “Serpent Swimming West”, and is indicative of both its shape and seismic instability.[14] 

By all accounts, the Yucca Mountain site will eventually be contaminated by the release of both heavy metals and radionuclides.  On March 10, 2006, Shoshone title was further upheld by the decision of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in which the United States was "urged to pay particular attention to the right to health and cultural rights of the Western Shoshone... which may be infringed upon by activities threatening the environment..."[15]

6.4.2  Timbisha Shoshone Reservation Lands and Water

The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe lost their homeland in 1933 when Death Valley National Monument was first created.  In 2000, the Timbisha Shoshone Homeland Act finally restored rights and three separate parcels of land[16].  It is believed that the lower carbonate aquifer provides up to 90% of the water in the Texas and Travertine Springs, the source of all domestic water for the Timbisha and Furnace Creek area.[17]

6.4.3  Additional Health Risks through Cultural Practices

The Nuclear Risk Management Program, conducted for many years in Nevada and Utah by the Childhood Cancer Research Institute and an alliance of Native American tribes and organizations, documented the additional exposure and health risk to traditional Native Americans in Nevada and elsewhere, through their use of locally harvested healing herbs and traditional foods such as sage, chaparral, pinion nuts, rabbit and deer. These herbs and animals can absorb contaminants and pass them on.  For example, meat from a deer captured near the Test Site in 1992 had 580,000 picocuries per liter of tritium in a single sample, 29 times the drinking water standard.[18]

6.4.4  The EPA Safe Drinking Water Standard is Inadequate for Desert Dwellers

The EPA Safe Drinking Water Standard is based on water consumption of two liters per day.  In the Death Valley region, this is insufficient for survival, even for a sedentary lifestyle.  Summer temperatures can be above 130 F.  Many people work outside, even in this extreme climate.  Consumption of two, four or even more times the volume of water used in EPA calculations results in significantly more potential exposure to contaminants. The standard also assumes exposure limited to a thirty year period.  Tribal families whose lands lie within reservation boundaries are bound to a specific location, not just for their lifetime, bur for consecutive generations.  Cumulative genetic mutation could be a factor of concern.  Author Viereck’s revised EPA calculations show that a person drinking a minimum level of four liters a day of water with plutonium 239/240 contamination at maximum “safe” levels over a 70 year lifetime could have a total exposure of almost 100 rem.  An outdoor worker drinking twelve liters of water a day at the same levels would have a maximum exposure level of almost 300 rem.

6.4.5  Environmental Protection Standards are Not Extended to All Forms of Life

The environmental impact of mankind upon the health and habitat of all living beings has been profoundly negative.  This is particularly obvious in places like Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.  The fact that environmental protection standards for food sources and water at these sites are not even considered, let alone enforced, for any life forms except for human beings is considered unethical and deeply troubling by all traditional people.