The Bush administration will proceed with a plan to build a nuclear waste site in Nevada this year despite a court decision ordering it to prevent radiation leaks for more than 10,000 years, a senior Energy Department official said on Tuesday.
Critics of the project, including Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, say this recent federal court ruling could permanently derail a plan to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The administration said, however, that it does not intend to slow down.
``We are still on track toward submitting a license application in December of this year, and opening the repository and beginning waste acceptance in 2010,'' Deputy Energy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow told a Senate Energy Committee hearing on nuclear energy.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Court Decision Won't Stop Yucca Mountain
The Bush administration is forging ahead with their plans to store 77,000 tons of radioactive material with a halflife of 300,000 years in Nevada despite a ruling that safeguards at the Yucca Mountain storage facility are inadequate.