Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 19, 1990                   TAG: 9007190288
SECTION: NATL                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

STUDY: NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP PLAN `BOUND TO FAIL'

U.S. policy requires the Department of Energy to build an underground nuclear waste depository that will be safe for 10,000 years. That, the study said, is a scientific impossibility.

"A policy that promises to anticipate every conceivable problem, or assumes that science will shortly provide all the answers, is bound to fail," the study said.

Federal law for disposing nuclear wastes, the study said, should have more flexibility to allow for uncertainties found while building such a large project.

Melinda Kassen, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said her organization and other environmental groups believe that the standards now in place should be enforced and that a policy demanding firm evidence of safety is the correct approach.

"There is wisdom, we believe, in trying to assure up front that you're not going to have contamination or catastrophe down the road," Kassen said in a telephone interview. "Before putting nuclear waste in the ground, you ought to show that the system is going to work."

The National Research Council study said the effect of current laws is that DOE managers feel required to do things "perfectly the first time."

While preparing an underground depository, the report said, federal experts are not given the flexibility to find ways to cope with unexpected geological features or to incorporate new scientific knowledge.

This rigid approach, the study said, creates a "scientific trap" by "encouraging the public to expect absolute certainty about the safety of the repository for 10,000 years and encouraging DOE program managers to pretend that they can provide it."

"Engineers are unable to anticipate all of the potential problems that might arise in trying to site, build and operate a repository," the report said. "Nor can science prove that a repository will be absolutely safe."

In 1987, Congress designated a site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada for detailed study. If the site meets standards established by the law, it could be licensed as the first underground repository for thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste created annually by nuclear power plants.

The National Research Council is an agency of the National Academy of Sciences, a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the federal government on scientific matters.