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Used 22 times over 314 weeks, Yucca Mountain facility closes
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Jeff Schied/Las Vegas Review-Journal
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave notice in June that it would vacate the lease at its Yucca Mountain hearing facility at 3250 Pepper Lane on Aug. 30. » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
At the end of August, the federal government will close its multimillion-dollar hearing facility in Las Vegas where lawyers argued their cases for and against building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
In less than seven years, a panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and License Board held relatively few hearings and meetings in the rented facility on Pepper Lane.
During that time, the commission spent at least $2 million installing closed-circuit televisions, computer equipment, sound systems and an airport-quality scanner and metal detectors. The General Services Administration paid more than $3 million to lease the building at Pacific Enterprise Plaza. That translates to nearly $467,000 per year in rent.
The agency gave notice in June that it would vacate its lease on Aug. 30. No Yucca Mountain hearings were held there this year because the Obama administration abandoned the project and zeroed out funding.
Traci Madison, spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, said in an email Friday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will transfer "excess property to other agencies with some of the computer equipment being earmarked for the computers for learning donation program which provides equipment to schools."
While closing the facility will barely put a dent in the $14.3 trillion federal debt, it will tighten the reins on what began as a warehouse for hearings and evolved into a high-tech effort into which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission poured money so that parties in Las Vegas and at the commission's headquarters in Bethesda, Md., could simultaneously watch and interact in the Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings.
"I remember some of the original meetings. The lawyers and judges were sitting at tables, and we sat in the audience and couldn't hear them. Here we are the entertainment capital of the world, and we can't get a sound system to work," said Steve Frishman, a consultant to the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"There were always interruptions and breakdowns," he said about the video and audio retrofits that were installed in the 16,500-square-foot building.
From the time the first public meeting in July 2005 until the last hearing in June 2010, the facility was used 22 times over 314 weeks, according to records kept in the document collection known as the Licensing Support Network. The network was taken offline Friday.
The meetings ranged from technical exchanges among scientists about the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site for disposing of nuclear waste to quarterly management meetings involving officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy with observers from the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"We were usually invited to comment at the end of the meeting," Frishman said.
Of six formal hearings and prehearings, the last one in June 2010 was held before three administrative judges of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. They listened to arguments about the Department of Energy's request to withdraw its license application for the Yucca Mountain site.
The request was a bitter pill for nuclear energy proponents to swallow after more than $10 billion had been spent over 23 years studying a ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for storing used nuclear fuel from commercial power reactors and highly radioactive defense waste in a maze of tunnels.
One hearing, in December 2008, was held before the Surface Transportation Board about now-defunct plans for building a 300-mile railway across rural Nevada to deliver nuclear waste to the mountain.
So what did the one permanent Atomic Safety and Licensing Board staff member and additional Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff, as well as security personnel, do during all those weeks that meetings and hearings weren't held?
They supported the Licensing Support Network, managed all webcasts, developed desktop database applications for use by judges and provided "'work from anywhere' support for full and part-time technical judges located across the country," NRC spokesman Scott Burnell wrote in an email.
"The security staff maintain vigilance in monitoring the facility security whatever the level of utilization."
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
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I'm tellin you, FOOD STORAGE at Yucca! Big bucks! [That's a joke son]
Is is kind of redundant though, politicians....muslims....
I like that Gary D. Well said.
@Gary , if this is really true we missed an opportunity to get out of the economy hole and why????? convenience. as you said we are going to be dead by our own politicians on starvation mode long before the Yucca Mountain been able to do any harm.
FACT: Tennessee will have a balanced budget --- reason why ?? They are making "BIG $$$$" at the Oakridge Nuclear Facility, actually importing and storing Nuclear Waste from France / Germany, and soon to be other countries. ------------------------------ If run correctly, Nevada had the opportunity to be the "RICHEST STATE IN THE COUNTRY" and threw it all away. Politicians or Muslims will destroy this country long before any earthquake does !!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- can't wait for the, I am smarter than you diatribe responses to this one.
Government in action. This is what they do.
As usual with the nuclear issue, this article presents a biased and unfair spin. It begins by barely acknowledging that the facility was created seven years ago, long before there was any reason to believe that the license application process would be summarily stopped. Thus, at the time it was created there was a legitimate need for it. The article also fails to acknowledge that there are such things as "long lead time purchases." Sometimes it is necessary to sign contracts to buy things that take a long time to build, without knowing for certain what the demand will be by the time it is ready. No-one seems to blame people in the private sector who commit to building new multi-billion dollar casinos during boom times, but demand collapses before the casinos are ready. Why would the government be any different? @Dibbels81: HAHAHAHA! I love it! VERY funny!
Still used it more than my gym membership.
problem is now there is now where to store all the waste in a secure central site , rather than having it stored all over the country.
$227,000 per meeting. This is another case that shows they don't need more tax money, they need to learn how to spend the tax money they get in an more efficient manner. Waste in our government spending, Billions of dollars each and every year.