Nevada sues to obtain key Yucca document

Nevada is asking a federal court to force the Department of Energy to release a key document on the safety of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The document is the government's draft license application for the repository, prepared by DOE's contractors in 2004 for upcoming Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing proceedings. "The federal government is required by law to share its important Yucca information with the host state," says Nevada Attorney General George J. Chanos. "But DOE has refused to do so for the past three years." DOE maintains that the draft license application is a preliminary document that is protected by various legal privileges. In July 2003, a federal appeals court ruled DOE must demonstrate repository safety for a period much longer than 10,000 years. DOE had planned to submit a draft license application to NRC by December 2004. But legal victories by Nevada and technical shortcomings at the project made that deadline impossible, and no new deadline has been set.