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EPA Issues Final Yucca Mountain Radiation Standards

Release Date: 09/30/2008
Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn, (202) 564-4355 / milbourn.cathy@epa.gov

(9/30/08) EPA has established radiation standards for the proposed spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

EPA is required to set standards consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and satisfy a July 2004 court decision to extend the standards' duration. The Yucca Mountain standards are in line with approaches used in the international radioactive waste management community. The final standards will:

• Retain the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after disposal;
• Establish a dose limit of 100 millirem annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years;
• Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion of the waste packages to safely contain the waste during the 1 million-year period; and
• Be consistent with the recommendations of the NAS by establishing a radiological protection standard for this facility at the time of peak dose up to 1 million years after disposal.