[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 38 (Monday, March 30, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    YUCCA MOUNTAIN MUST BE DISQUALIFIED AS A SITE FOR REPOSITORY OF 
                  DEADLIEST MATERIAL EVER MADE BY MAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, the proponents of storing nuclear waste in 
Nevada suffered a huge setback last week when scientists from the 
California Institute of Technology and Harvard University reported that 
the strain in the Earth's crust near Yucca Mountain makes it at least 
10 times more prone to earthquakes and lava flows than government 
scientists previously estimated.
  The study commissioned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded 
that the ground around Yucca Mountain could stretch more than 3 feet 
over the next 1,000 years. While this may not sound like a great deal 
of movement, this distance is a distance that would easily crush any 
canister of nuclear waste buried there, exposing a wide area including 
the water table of the Southwest to deadly radioactivity and pollution.
  When the original criteria for a long term nuclear storage site was 
created, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that any site that 
would be stable for 10,000 years would be appropriate for a high-level 
nuclear waste dump. However, now this latest data shows that the ground 
around Yucca Mountain will not be stable for even one-tenth of that 
time. It is a sure bet though, if we give the U.S. Department of Energy 
a scientific reason to doubt the wisdom of storing high-level waste at 
Yucca Mountain, the agency will simply ignore the findings.
  Nevada ranks third in the Nation for current seismic and earthquake 
activity. Earthquake databases indicate that since 1976 there have been 
621 seismic events of a magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50-mile 
radius of Yucca Mountain. The most notable event that occurred this 
period was a earthquake with a magnitude of 5.6 that occurred in 1992.
  Now, the mountain ranges and valleys in the Yucca Mountain area are a 
result of millions of years of intense faulting and volcanism. With 33 
earthquake faults and more than 30 earthquakes a year, Yucca Mountain 
is not geologically safe. Any nuclear accident at Yucca Mountain could 
send invisible but deadly radioactive dust across the Nation, 
contaminating everyone and everything in its path, since the winds 
blowing across the country move from West to East.
  Mr. Speaker, on December 1997 an incident occurred near Kingman, 
Arizona in which a truck carrying radioactive waste had leaked from one 
of its nuclear waste containers. The nuclear waste canister leaks 
proved that transporting this refuse poses a real threat to our 
children and our communities. DOE's previous statement and guarantees 
made about the safety of transporting nuclear waste are now clearly 
irrelevant.
  Their findings confess to four reasons why this incident occurred. 
First, containers were used for shipping after design flaws were 
identified in earlier container failures. Second, lack of understanding 
of the properties of the waste, specifically that excess free liquid 
would form during transportation. Third, lack of formality and rigor in 
contractor oversight between DOE Fernald and DOE Nevada. And finally, 
fourth, failure to provide the appropriate attention and oversight to 
these shipments because of the relatively low potential threat to 
public health and safety.
  Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Jim Owendoff 
stated, ``We are troubled by lapses in contractor management and DOE 
oversight, especially because problems with the containers had been 
identified on previous occasions.''
  These canister leaks were not caused by an accident or other large 
catastrophe. The Accident Investigation Board concluded that stress 
fractures caused the leaks in the shipping containers and were widened 
by vibration and wear associated with normal highway transport. Yet the 
DOE would have us believe that canisters that cannot withstand highway 
travel are impervious to earthquakes and other natural disasters.
  When looking ahead to the possibility of canisters carrying high-
level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, canisters that carry 10 
times the long-lived radiation that the bomb on Hiroshima released, 
citizens across this country must be protected, and cannot be 
threatened and endangered by canister leaks caused by simple highway 
vibrations.
  Yucca Mountain must be disqualified as a site for a temporary or a 
permanent repository for the deadliest material ever made by man. The 
Department of Energy cannot safely transport nuclear waste, and this 
Congress wants to store the refuse in the third most active earthquake 
area in the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, it becomes apparent that the lives of our constituents 
and their communities depend on the decisions we make on this floor. I 
encourage all Members and the American people to learn the true science 
surrounding this issue, for our children and their future depend on it.

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