That's if everything goes as the federal government hopes. By law, the repository was supposed to have been ready Feb. 1, but the DOE has fumbled the ball. That will be addressed next year in a DOE draft environmental impact statement on the repository program. It's not yet understood whether the repository will withstand the rigors of time and nature for 10,000 years. But whether Yucca Mountain should become the final resting place for this deadly garbage may be an entirely separate matter.
Some critics contend, with good reason, that it already has happened.
They allege the safety standards for the repository are being lowered to make certain Yucca Mountain's repository can be declared licensable. It should be up to Congress to keep DOE, EPA and the NRC honest in their assessments of the repository's safety capabilities. And the fact that Congress now is busying itself changing, perhaps even lowering, the safety standards of the repository hardly enhances public confidence in this unprecedented, appallingly risky undertaking. DOE's technical adviser Van Luik denies that the change in standards means increased safety risks to the public. Just the opposite is true, he maintains.