Yucca data out — all 5.6 million pages

WASHINGTON — The government is making available to the public 1.2 million documents related to the federal proposal to build a nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The documents, totaling 5.6 million pages, will be part of the Energy Department's permit application that is expected to be submitted this year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Most of the papers are supporting documents for previous reports, studies and assessments involving the project. It won final approval from Congress in 2002, pending an NRC license.

The documents cover more than 20 years of scientific study of Yucca Mountain, the department said in a statement Wednesday.

To dramatize the immense volume of papers, the department said the documents, if stacked in one pile, would be as tall as an 18-story building or three times the height of the Washington Monument, and, if placed end-to-end, would stretch from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas.

The repository, proposed for a volcanic rock site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would become the nation's central burial place for 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste from commercial power plants and defense sites in 39 states.

The department hopes to open it in 2010. The NRC licensing process will take several years.

The papers were being made available through the Energy Department and NRC Web sites, the department said.

---

On the Net: Energy Department background: www.ocrwm.doe.gov