Volume 144, No. 38 covering the 2nd Session of the 105th Congress (1997 - 1998) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“YUCCA MOUNTAIN MUST BE DISQUALIFIED AS A SITE FOR REPOSITORY OF DEADLIEST MATERIAL EVER MADE BY MAN” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1769 on March 30, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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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