State of Nevada comments on the US Department of Energy site characterization plan, Yucca Mountain site, Nevada; Volume 4
The following document comprises a critical evaluation of the DOE`s Site Characterization Plan (SCP). The comments address a number of issues related to the scientific methods involved in the proposed procedures of site characterization, the suitability and integration of the methods, and the validity of the approach taken by the DOE in the context of the NRC regulations. The SCP contains many improvements of the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA) and the Environmental Assessment (EA), and fewer improvements of the SCP Consultation Draft. An obvious attempt has been made to address topics that were regarded in these previous reviews as deficiencies in the study program. For example, the activity and seismogenic potential of the Quaternary faults at Yucca Mountain are treated much more realistically than orignally proposed by the DOE, even though published data has not increased significantly since the DEA and EA were released. Water is now recognized as a resource, and faults and fault breccias are recognized as potential hosts for epithermal mineralization. There has, in addition, been considerable effort to incorporate a number of alternative conceptual models (involving both cross sections of Yucca Mountain and regional tectonic models) into the realm of tectonic hypotheses. There is a little doubt that the SCP proposes an exhaustive and wide-ranging scope of investigations for the purpose of site characterization, and that many of these investigations have been included by the DOE in response to critical reviews by external groups (such as the NRC and various State of Nevada agencies).
- Research Organization:
- Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office, Carson City, NV (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG08-85NV10461
- OSTI ID:
- 137624
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/NV/10461--T40-Vol.4; ON: DE90005487
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Draft environmental assessment: Yucca Mountain site, Nevada research and development area, Nevada. Nuclear Waste Policy Act (Section 112)
Detachment faults-regulatory implications for the Yucca Mountain site