NRDC's Perspective on the Nuclear Waste Dilemma

• Date: 01 August 2010
• Author: Thomas B. Cochran and Geoffrey H. Fettus

8-2010 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY ANNUAL REVIEW 40 ELR 10791

R E S P O N S E

NRDC’s Perspective on the

Nuclear Waste Dilemma

by omas B. Cochran and Georey H. Fettus

omas B. Cochran is a senior scientist in the nuclear program and holds the Wade Greene Chair for Nuclear Policy at the

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where he served as director of the nuclear program until 2007. Mr. Cochran has

served as a consultant to numerous government and nongovernment agencies on energy, nuclear nonproliferation, and nuclear

reactor matters, and is currently a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee.

Georey H. Fettus joined NRDC in the fall of 2001, and as a senior attorney manages all aspects of NRDC’s nuclear litigation

in trial and appellate courts. Mr. Fettus has spent a signicant portion of his time litigating nuclear waste and cleanup issues,

including as lead counsel for NRDC and other environmental groups in the successful challenge to EPA’s radiation protection

standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2004.

While we agree with Richard B. Stewart, in his

Article, Solving the U.S. Nuclear Waste Dilemma,1

on some crucial issues—most notably that the

national process for developing a geologic repository for dis-

posal nuclear wa ste is currently a mess—we have a substan-

tially dierent perspective on the reasons for the mess a nd

the path forward.

I. Background on Geologic Repositories

As Stewart describes, eorts to geologically isolate high-level

nuclear waste began more than forty years ago. e National

Academy of Sciences in 1957 reported that a number of

geologic disposal alternatives were possible, but indicated a

preference for disposal in salt. In 1967, the Atomic Energy

Commission (AEC) proposed Project Salt Vault, a plan to

develop a geologic repository in the Carey salt mine at Lyons,

Kansas. is plan was aba ndoned by the A EC in the early

1970s after the Kansa s Geological Sur vey mounted a strong

campaign against the site, pointing out that the area had

been subjected to extensive exploratory drilling for oil a nd

gas deposits, and noting that an adjacent salt mine could not

account for the loss of a large volume of water used during

solution mining of the salt.

In 1974, the Energy Resea rch and Development Agency

(ERDA), formed out of the AEC and t he predecessor to the

DOE, retreated from geological disposal by proposing a

Retrievable Surface Storage Facility (RSSF) for interim stor-

age of high-level waste while pursuing geologic disposal at a

more leisurely pace.  is idea was rejected by environmental-

1. Richard B. Stewart, U.S. Nuclear Waste Law and Policy: Fixing a Bankrupt System,

17 N.Y.U. E. L.J. 783 (2008). is comment is based on Stewart’s original

2008 published article rather than the version that appears at 40 ELR (E. L.

 P’ A. R.) 10783 (Aug. 2010) and may refer to material that appears

in the original article only.

ists and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the

grounds that it would delay permanent disposal.

In the mid-1970s, it also became clear that commercial

spent fuel reprocessing wa s uneconomical, environmentally

unsound a nd represented a serious proliferation risk. Presi-

dent Gerald Ford refused to subsidiz e the completion of the

Barnwell reprocessing plant, and then President Jimmy Carter

pulled the plug on reprocessing.  is gave a new urgency to

nding a site suitable for geologic disposal of both spent fuel

and high-level nuclear waste. In the late 1970s, President

Carter initiated an Interagency Review Group (IRG) process

to solve the nuclear waste problem in the United States once

and for all. e IRG process involved numerous scientists,

extensive public involvement, a nd a consultation a nd concur-

rence role for the states. e outcome of the IRG eort was

a two-track program. e DOE was tasked w ith the respon-

sibility for identifying the best repository site in the country,

and EPA and the NRC were tasked with developing nuclear

waste disposal criteria against which the selection and devel-

opment of the nal repository site would be judged.

II. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act

In 1982, Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act

(NWPA), which embodied in law the principal recom-

mendations that grew out of the IRG process, including a

commitment to geologic disposal, two repositories, and char-

acterization of three sites before nal selection of the rst

repository. e NW PA established a comprehensive program

for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level rad ioac-

tive waste (HLW) from the nation’s commercial reactors and

nuclear weapons complex.

At the time the N WPA was passed nearly thirty years ago,

the federal government enjoyed fairly widespread support

from within Congress, the environmental community, and

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