Yucca Mountain: One Man Switches Sides

  • Yucca Mountain is the nation's planned repository for spent nuclear fuel (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)

Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:

Transcript

Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:

For twenty years Nevada’s tried to scuttle Yucca Mountain.

Along the way, it’s hired Robert Halstead to create a plan to soften the blow if it loses. He’s an expert on nuclear waste truck and rail transportation.

“My job would be to craft the safest, or least-bad, transportation system so that if Nevada got stuck with a repository they would at least have some control of the transportation system because the activity that most likely to injures people and the environment is transportation.”

Halstead didn’t start his nuclear career on Nevada’s side, though. Thirty years ago, he worked for Wisconsin. He says the federal government wanted states’ help in storing nuclear waste deep underground.

In 1982 Congress came to consensus about how to test sites. He trusted it – and built political support for it.

“There was a clear statement that safety was not enough and economic efficiency was not enough. You also had to deal with regional equity.”

The gist was that there’d be at least two nuclear waste repositories: one in the West, and one in the East.

“We were pretty optimistic. Unfortunately that all began to fall apart very quickly.”

Congressmen and even the public started getting cold feet about the site selection process.

There were rowdy protests, especially in states that may have had the right geology for a repository. That included Wisconsin.

“If there was an objective approach to picking the sites, we knew that we would be in the first tier of the sites that would be evaluated.”

After a few years, Eastern politicians got frantic.

“They asked for a fix.”

Halstead decided to help with this fix, because he’d lost faith in the system, too. He says he helped cut legislative deals to stop the nuclear waste law he’d supported just a few years earlier.

It worked.

In 1987, Congress ended the government’s search for a nuclear waste repository.

Yucca would be the only candidate.

“This law was written very carefully to ensure that Nevada got screwed. And you know what, it chilled my blood.”

Halstead realized he’d passed a law that broke that early consensus about regional equity.

He was disappointed, and nearly dumped nuclear politics, but then he got a call. It was from a chief nuclear official in Nevada.

“He said aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I would really like you to come out here and help us. And I said to him, ‘I’d just got done getting Wisconsin getting off the hook and if I help you get off the hook, I think it’s likely that they’ll have to come back to Wisconsin.’”

But Halstead took the job.

I’ve asked him why several times. Sometimes he’s said guilt. Sometimes, regret. Sometimes, for a job.

Right now, Congress is considering cutting Yucca Mountain’s budget, and President Obama says he’s against the project.

But the law to make Yucca the only choice is still on the books.

I ask Robert Halstead whether that will change. He’s not sure – it’ll be tough to build a new consensus even close to what he saw thirty years ago.

“If nuclear waste disposal in a repository were safe and profitable, someone would have taken it away from Nevada years ago, so there won’t be an amicable ending to this story.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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