State officials are set to begin their latest fight to keep the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository from opening in Nevada. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy submitted its nearly 87-hundred page application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That agency will now decide whether to allow the site northwest of Las Vegas to be built and store 77- thousand tons of spent nuclear waste. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman contends Yucca Mountain is safe and environmentally sound. But Nevada's congressional delegation feels otherwise, with Senator Harry Reid calling the DOE application "shoddy at best." Bob Loux with the state Nuclear Projects Agency called the application "science fiction" and predicts the NRC will reject it. Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is expected to file a petition with the NRC today, calling for the Yucca Mountain application to be rejected immediately, claiming it is not complete. If not rejected, the application process is expected to take about three years. The DOE hopes to open the facility as early as the year 2020, but critics say that target date may be too optimistic.
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