Aiken County says U.S. can't close Yucca

By Julia Sellers, The Augusta Chronicle, Ga. /McClatchy-Tribune Regional News//////390 words/5 April 2010/The Augusta Chronicle (MCT)KRTAG/EnglishDistributed by McClatchy - Tribune Information Services
/Apr. 5--AIKEN -- Aiken County stands by its petition against the closing of Yucca Mountain, saying the Department of Energy can't back out of its agreement to ship nuclear waste to the Nevada repository unless Congress amends the law or its license is turned down for scientific reasons.
The county filed its 15-page response Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Last week the Department of Energy and a handful of regulatory agencies said Aiken County was premature in filing a suit against the Obama's administration's plans to terminate the site.
Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was being designed to accommodate radioactive material stored at 121 temporary sites in 39 states, including SRS, where high-level wastes are stored in steel cylinders that were to be shipped elsewhere. It also would have housed 70,000 tons of waste from the nation's 104 commercial reactors, which are generating about 2,000 additional tons of spent fuel each year. President Obama's 2011 budget does not include funding for the facility, which has been in the works for more than 25 years.
Nevada has supported DOE's efforts to withdraw the site application and submitted its own petition arguing that it will be harmed if the repository moves forward.
Aiken's response says "DOE cannot be allowed to unilaterally derail the process (...) for the purpose of establishing a long-term solution to the nation's and Aiken County's critical need for long-term storage for high-level nuclear waste."
In addressing DOE's contention that Aiken County failed to establish how DOE's actions would adversely affect it, the filing says Aiken County doesn't need to prove harm because the law establishes Yucca as the only congressionally approved repository.
Aiken County's attorney, Thomas Gottshall, of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A. in Columbia, said the next move lies with the Court of Appeals, which could opt to make a ruling in the case or give DOE additional time to respond.