Earthquake Strikes Near Yucca Mountain

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, June 14, 2002 (ENS) - An earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter Scale was recorded early this morning deep beneath the desert near the site chosen by the Bush administration for the nation's permanent high-level nuclear waste repository.

Department of Energy (DOE) officials reported no damage or injuries at the Yucca Mountain repository site, about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain (Photo courtesy DOE)

There was no damage to any Yucca Mountain Project facilities, structures or the underground Exploratory Studies Facilities, the DOE said. A public tour of Yucca Mountain will take place Saturday as scheduled.

A battle is going on in Congress and in the courts over whether Yucca Mountain is safe enough to store the nation's nuclear waste including spent nuclear fuel and Defense Department nuclear waste.

Most Nevada residents and Nevada elected officials of both political parties at all levels of government are opposed to the site on safety grounds.

Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, calls the earthquake "a wake-up call for the U.S. Senate," which will vote on whether to override Nevada's veto of the site later this summer.

"If anyone ever wondered about the wisdom of locating an underground radioactive dump site on an active fault line, this shows why," Berkley said today. "The Yucca Mountain project is inherently dangerous. The site was chosen based on political expediency, and not scientific merit."

"Not only does the proposed repository sit on a live fault line, but the area is known for volcanic activity and groundwater movement," Berkley said. "An earthquake disrupting a repository could not only cause a radioactive breach in its own right, but could open geologic fissures in the mountain, guiding rain and groundwater directly to the waste dump, and dramatically speeding the contamination of Western water tables.

The Bush administration and the nuclear industry say the radioactive waste will be safer transported to Yucca Mountain and stored there than if it remains at 103 nuclear plants and several Defense Department locations.

Engineers test ability of Yucca Mountain to contain radioactive waste from a tunnel bored through the mountain. (Photo courtesy DOE)

"Yucca Mountain repository designs could withstand a local earthquake with 1,000 times more energy than the one reported this morning and a regional earthquake with 30,000 times more energy than the one reported this morning," the DOE said in a statement.

Citizen Alert, a Nevada anti-Yucca Mountain advocacy group, is not reassured. The group says earthquakes are just one more reason why Yucca Mountain is not safe enough to contain the nation's nuclear waste. "The area has a history of earthquakes, including one in 1932 that registered 7.1 on the Richter scale, the same magnitude as the San Francisco earthquake in 1989," the group points out.

In 1992, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred in the same vicinity, releasing energy about 30 times greater than this morning's earthquake. DOE officials said the 1992 earthquake "did not even dislodge boulders located on the slopes of Yucca Mountain."