Geologic and hydrologic issues related to siting a repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, U.S.A.

Abstract

After three decades, policy in the U.S.A. for managing high-level nuclear wastes has settled on disposal of the wastes in deep geologic repositories. The site selection program for this endeavor currently is focused on a single site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. A number of important and unresolved issues have arisen with respect to the geologic and hydrologic suitability of Yucca Mountain for isolating nuclear wastes. These include concerns such as the potential for future tectonic and volcanic events to occur at the site and the unknown nature of the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain. This paper reviews these issues and concludes that much of the information used to support nomination of the Yucca Mountain site for characterisation is incomplete and equivocal. Moreover, reliable methods and techniques do not always exist for resolving the uncertainties with deterministic methods based on empirical data.