Warning on nuclear waste

The Aug. 23 earthquake sent a message that the Obama administration and its Nuclear Regulatory Commission must heed: It is essential that a secure, central nuclear waste repository be readied in the near term. The president should reverse his irresponsible decision to stop development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal facility in Nevada.

Dominion Virginia Power reported that the 5.8-magnitude quake shifted 25 massive concrete containers holding high-level nuclear waste at its North Anna nuclear plant, about 12 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. Thankfully, no radioactivity was released.

The Virginia-based quake was comparatively moderate; it is estimated that the March earthquake in Japan was 1,000 times stronger.

However, it should signal that a central, safe repository for nuclear waste needs to be provided, and that temporary storage, such as that provided at the North Anna plant, needs to be upgraded in the interim.

"This indicates that reactors that have these dry casks in these earthquake-prone areas, they're going to have to do more to protect them from ground motion," nuclear waste expert Robert Alvarez told The Washington Post.

Mr. Alvarez, of the Institute for Policy Studies, noted that on-site waste disposal, now provided at 104 reactors across the nation, has become the de facto long-term waste site for nuclear waste storage.

There's also a major temporary storage site in South Carolina. Savannah River Site maintains vast quantities of high-level radioactive waste dating from its days as a production facility for nuclear weapons. And it is handling additional waste from the cleanup of other federal defense facilities and as part of the nation's nuclear non-proliferation effort.

SRS' temporary waste-storage duties were assumed with the promise that a site would soon be available for permanent storage. After decades of study and $15 billion spent, Yucca Mountain was expected to fit the bill.

But President Obama unilaterally decided to pull the plug on the project. The action was clearly taken to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who faced a close race for re-election.

The harrowing Virginia quake was felt over a large part of the East Coast, though it produced comparatively little damage. An NRC review of nuclear reactor safety already was under way before the quake.

The Virginia earthquake should serve as a warning to Washington on nuclear waste storage, and the danger of the administration's action.

The decision is not irrevocable. The administration should ponder what might happen in a quake of greater magnitude, at any of the dozens of waste sites across the nation, and reverse its course on Yucca Mountain.