WASHINGTON, D.C. – – A coalition of national and Nevada-based environmental, consumer advocacy, and public interest groups filed a lawsuit today, challenging the weakest aspects of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule that establishes radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
“A stringent standard is vital to protect public health and safety in the vicinity of the proposed repository,” said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen. “The EPA’s rule affords inadequate protection to the people of Nevada and steers national nuclear waste policy in a dangerous direction.”
Yucca Mountain is the only site under consideration by the Department of Energy (DOE) as a potential repository for high-level nuclear waste from weapons facilities and commercial nuclear power plants across the country. The EPA’s radiation protection rule, published in the Federal Register on June 13, sets the standards by which the site’s suitability will be determined.
“This undermines the purpose of radiation protection standards, by presuming that a repository at Yucca Mountain will not contain nuclear waste throughout the thousands of years it remains dangerous.,” said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator with Citizen Alert. “Exposure limits are built around expected levels of radioactive contamination leaking from the dump, thus establishing a regulatory framework for legalized nuclear pollution in Nevada.”
Of particular concern is the 18-km (12-mile) unregulated sacrifice zone around the proposed repository that the EPA rule employs to circumvent legal requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This gerrymandering weakens the effect of the standards by allowing DOE repository designs to rely on dilution and dispersion — rather than containment — of radioactive waste, the groups said.
“We have advocated a protective standard at all stages of the process leading up to this rule being finalized. We are now bringing this issue before the courts because our concerns have not been addressed,” said David Adelman, senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council. “We cannot accept a rule that sets artificially weak standards to allow a fundamentally flawed project to move forward.”
The petition for review was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, by Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Citizen Alert, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and Public Citizen.