The EPA has noted that the repository would be located over a "large, deep source of fresh water currently used as agricultural and drinking water. This water feeds a larger groundwater basin south of the site that has the potential to supply many people in the surrounding area."

If approved, the site would be the country's first geologic repository for disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Thousands of tons of nuclear waste from around the country, some transported through Utah, would be dumped at the Nye County site. About 1,400 people live within 20 miles of the site.

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has said he will continue to try stopping the Yucca Mountain site from being built, and Reid also has been a vocal opponent. Last June Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the application to build the site will "stand up to any challenge anywhere."

The site at one time had been proposed for opening in 1998, but legal, political and scientific controversies have pushed the new estimated operational date to at least 2020. The lifetime cost of maintaining the site is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, while earlier this year Congress approved spending nearly $390 million on the project. In 1978 the DOE began looking at Yucca Mountain as a possible nuclear waste dump.

More information is available at www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca.

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Contributing: The Associated Press

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E-MAIL: sspeckman@desnews.com