Letter to the Editor Washington Post

Letter to the Editor

Wednesday, February 6, 5:59 PM

The Feb. 4 editorial, “Where will the nuclear waste go?,” expressed skepticism that communities would “volunteer to host waste facilities, particularly the permanent repository, no matter the economic benefits.” To consent to such a facility, a community must have confidence in the integrity of the contract into which they are entering on behalf of their citizens and, especially in this case, their future generations. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act that led to selecting Yucca Mountain was such a statutory framework, enacted by a bipartisan Congress, setting forth a process for developing two repositories.
Today, any prospective host community will have to confront the reality that the U.S. government failed to implement its own nuclear waste law. Absent an executive branch willing to carry out a nuclear waste law enacted by Congress, and overseen by a truly independent safety regulator, how can any community have confidence that this, or any other statutorily mandated path to a repository disposal solution, will be realized?

Janet P. Kotra, Herndon
The writer is a former senior project manager in the Division of Spent Fuel Alternative Strategies at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2013/02/06/37b34976-6efd-11e2-b35a-0ee56f0518d2_story.html