Yucca proposal met with outrage
2/3/2010 11:45 PM
By MIKE GELLATLY
Staff writer for The Aiken Standard
The federal government’s proposal to abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is angering some local residents.
As part of President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget proposal announced Monday, the Yucca project would be terminated. Yucca has been designated as the United States’ long-term storage site for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.
On Tuesday night, Aiken County Council moved forward on a resolution demanding the proposal to terminate the much-invested Yucca facility be reconsidered.
At the same time, the South Carolina House of Representatives and Senate are debating a resolution of their own against the proposal to terminate the Yucca site.
The resolution states the fear that “the federal government’s decision to abandon Yucca Mountain means the Savannah River Site may become a permanent repository for defense nuclear waste in violation of long-standing federal assurances to the contrary.”
Speaking from Columbia Wednesday, Aiken County Councilman Chuck Smith said he was livid about the decision and the money that has been used to investigate the Yucca site. Smith said the decision was “arrogant.”
Smith said an estimated $100 billion has been spent on the project. He described any alternatives as “a joke” and “pie in the sky” that the technology could be rolled out soon.
Smith said he was in Columbia looking at remedies to help South Carolina financially, such as charging “tipping fees” to other states whose plutonium has been removed and is being stored at the Savannah River Site.
Local nuclear advocates have suggested that the committee may not totally abandon the concept of Yucca, but scale it down along with nuclear reprocessing and the development of fast-neutron reactors to reduce the stocks of spent fuel.
Executive Director of the Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness Clint Wolfe said he hoped the commission would craft an entire energy policy.
Alternatives to the Yucca site are expected to come from a new “Blue Ribbon” commission appointed by the president. The committee will look into the best way to tackle the nation’s nuclear waste, but will not focus on Yucca; its formal decision will be delivered in two years, according to officials.
On the state level, the South Carolina Legislature is swiftly working to pass a resolution to support the terminated project.
“The South Carolina General Assembly calls upon the Department of Energy to assure the citizens of this state that the federal government will honor its long-standing commitment to provide for permanent nuclear-waste storage in an approved facility,” the resolution states.
The resolution has already passed the House and is now in committee in the Senate.
Contact Mike Gellatly at mgellatly@aikenstandard.com.
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