Yucca Mountain Unsafe for Nuclear Waste

The nation's nuclear waste dump proposed for Nevada is poorly designed and could leak highly radioactive waste, a scientist who recently resigned from a federal panel of experts on Yucca Mountain told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"I would never say Yucca Mountain won't work. What I would say is the design they have won't work.

"The report says in ordinary English that under the conditions proposed by the Department of Energy, the canisters will leak. It was signed by every single member of the board so there would be no confusion.''

The board's report in November said the government had failed to take into account "deliquescence'' - a phenomenon regarding the reaction of salt to moisture - in its plans to operate the dump at temperatures well above boiling water, or about 200 degrees.