Ken Ritter reports that findings released Thursday by analysts in the federal agency with the power to give the go-ahead for a proposed national nuclear waste dump in Nevada appear to provide wiggle room for adopting rules to open the repository, if decision-makers want to go forward. Conditions - to open the repository - could be included, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said, if there is a commission decision to authorize construction. But the federal Department of Energy still needs to acquire crucial land and water rights, it said. Opponents and proponents of the Yucca Mountain project each found support for their positions in the release of the final two volumes of a five-volume report by commission staff. Both acknowledged it will be up to Congress to pay for a licensing process and secure land and water rights before construction could resume on a site to entomb the most radioactive waste in a desert area 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Tom Kauffman saw in the report an endorsement by independent experts of Energy Department conclusions that the proposed repository would be capable of safely isolating used nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste for 1 million years.
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