The 2001 and 2008 Yucca Mountain Repository Standards: Errors Due to a Legal Dilemma That Needs to be Resolved

The 2008 EPA Standards for the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository suffer from the fact that they are dose-, rather than risk-, based. As such, they fail to reflect the scientific fundamentals of the fields of radiation biology and radiation protection and safety, the primary one being that the relationship between dose and risk will not remain constant with time. This is a key factor that distinguishes assessments of the health impacts of a nuclear facility that has the potential for long-term radionuclide releases from those, such as a commercial nuclear power plant that is designed to operate for perhaps 40 years, be decommissioned, and the site restored to its natural state. The origin of the problem lies in the Energy Policy Act of 1992, in which the U.S. Congress stipulated (a) that the Standards be expressed in terms of an 'equivalent dose rate'; and (b) that EPA seek the guidance of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on the form and nature of the Standards. In its response, the most important recommendation of the NAS was that: 'We recommend the use of a standard that sets a limit on the risk to individuals of adverse health effects from releases from the repository'... the reason being that 'a risk-based standard would not have to be revised in subsequent rulemakings if advances in scientific knowledge reveal that the dose-response relation is different than envisaged today'. Unfortunately, under the law EPA was compelled to follow the dictates of the U.S. Congress, namely, to express the limits in terms of a dose rate. The result is a set of Standards that is neither integrated, consistent, nor implementable. (authors)