Editing Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository (section)

== Radiation standards ==
[[File:Yucca Mountain tunnel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A tunnel inside the Exploratory Studies Facility.]]

=== Original standard ===
The EPA established its Yucca Mountain standards in June 2001.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/yucca/402-f-05-026.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625143023/http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/yucca/402-f-05-026.pdf
|archive-date=June 25, 2008 |title=EPA's Proposed Public Health and Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Yucca Mountain |date=October 2005 |publisher=[[United States Environmental Protection Agency]] |access-date=May 16, 2008}}</ref> The storage standard set a dose limit of 15 [[millirem]] per year for the public outside the Yucca Mountain site. The disposal standards consisted of three components: an individual dose standard, a standard evaluating the impacts of human intrusion into the repository, and a [[groundwater]] protection standard. The individual-protection and human intrusion standards set a limit of 15 millirem per year to a reasonably maximally exposed individual, who would be among the most highly exposed members of the public.<ref name="Wehrum">{{cite web |url=http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=da19acbe-802a-23ad-4357-2f58816a73f0&Witness_ID=58979654-be03-4f7f-9bde-04967db10644|title=Full Committee Oversight Hearing on the Status of the Yucca Mountain Project |first=William |last=Wehrum |date=March 1, 2006 |publisher=U.S. Senate committee on Environmental and Public Works |access-date=2010-07-14}}</ref>

The groundwater protection standard is consistent with the EPA [[Safe Drinking Water Act]] standards, which the Agency applies in many situations as a [[Water Pollution|pollution prevention]] measure. The disposal standards were to apply for 10,000 years after the facility is closed. Dose assessments were to continue beyond 10,000 years and be placed in DOE's [[Environmental Impact Statement]], but were not subject to a compliance standard.<ref name="Wehrum"/>

The 10,000-year period for compliance assessment is consistent with EPA's generally applicable standards developed under the [[Nuclear Waste Policy Act]]. It also reflects international guidance regarding the level of confidence that can be placed in numerical projections over very long periods of time.<ref name="Wehrum"/>

=== Inconsistent standards ===
Shortly after the EPA first established these standards in 2001, the nuclear industry, several environmental and public interest groups, and the State of Nevada challenged the standards in court. In July 2004, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found in favor of the EPA on all counts except one: the 10,000 year regulatory time frame. The court ruled that EPA's 10,000-year compliance period for isolation of radioactive waste was not consistent with [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] (NAS) recommendations and was too short.<ref>Vandenbosch, Robert, and Susanne E. Vandenbosch. 2007. ''Nuclear waste stalemate''. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 111, 190–191.</ref><ref>Nuclear Energy Institute v. EPA, 373 ''F.3d'' 1251 (D.C. Cir. 2004). [http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200407/01-1258a.pdf UScourts.gov]</ref>

The NAS report had recommended standards be set for the time of peak risk, which might approach a period of one million years.<ref>U.S. National Research Council, Committee on Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards. 1995. ''Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain standards''. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.</ref> By limiting the compliance time to 10,000 years, EPA did not respect a statutory requirement that it develop standards consistent with NAS recommendations.<ref>Vandenbosch, Robert, and Susanne E. Vandenbosch. 2007. ''Nuclear waste stalemate''. Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, p. 111.</ref>

=== EPA's rule ===
The EPA published in the U.S. Federal Register a final rule in 2009. The rule limits radiation doses from Yucca Mountain for up to 1,000,000 years after it closes. Within that regulatory time frame, the EPA has two dose standards that would apply based on the number of years from the time the facility is closed.

For the first 10,000 years, the EPA would retain the 2001 final rule's dose limit of 15 millirem per year. This is protection at the level of the most stringent radiation regulations in the U.S. today. From 10,000 to one million years, EPA established a dose limit of 100 millirem per year. EPA's rule requires DOE to show that Yucca Mountain can safely contain wastes, considering the effects of earthquakes, [[volcanic activity]], [[climate change]], and container [[corrosion]], over one million years. The current analysis indicates that the repository will cause less than 1 mrem/year public dose for 1,000,000 years.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ialenti |first=Vincent |year=2014 |title=Adjudicating Deep Time: Revisiting the United States' High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository Project at Yucca Mountain |volume=27 |url=https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/55323 |access-date=2023-08-07 |publisher=Science & Technology Studies |issue=2}}</ref>