High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository

Between 1986-1988, Impact Assessment, Inc. implemented a study on behalf of the State of Washington, Department of Ecology, entitled Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of the Proposed High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository at Hanford Site, Washington. This project was the first study of its kind under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, of what was expected to be several such studies to characterize Hanford, Washington, Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and Deaf Smith County, Texas as prospective candidate sites for permanent storage of the nation’s civilian and defense department high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) (although the defense waste issue continued to be hotly contested). The core logic of the Act required there to be several sites considered from which, after all studies were completed, the most qualified site would be selected. In December 1987, during a Congressional recess, a decision was made among several key senators to terminate this most vital component of the 1982 Act.

It was under these conditions that the NWPA, as Amended (1987) was borne, the proposed Hanford repository, and all other candidate sites, were permanently removed from consideration, and the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain became the sole site designated for characterization and placement of the nation’s HLNW.

Impact Assessment, Inc., was subsequently selected to carry out the Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of the Proposed High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This project was initiated in 1992 and continued until 1995, and entailed numerous study design, methodology, baseline, socioeconomic, sociocultural, emergency response system design, and other components, seeking to understand how the facility could affect human populations at local, regional, and statewide levels.

The project design consisted of three initial components. The first of these components was to forge a Research Design that would serve as a guide for the overall research process. The second component was the construction of the Base Case, the purpose of which was to describe existing conditions in Clark County in the specified analytic areas of Economic-Demographic/Fiscal, Emergency Planning and Management, Transportation and Sociocultural analysis. The base case description serves as a basis for assessing changes in these topic areas that might result from the Yucca Mountain project. These changes will be assessed by analyzing conditions with and without repository development in the county. The Systems Development Report represents the third major component in the Clark County Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of the Proposed High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mound Nevada.