Responding to the filing, Governor Jim Gibbons reiterated his promise to fight the waste dump, which he said "threatens the life and safety of the people of Nevada."
"As long as I am governor, the state will continue to do everything it can to stop Yucca Mountain from becoming reality," he said in a statement.
Bodman called the application submission "a big day" for moving the stalled project forward and said he's confident the scientific assessments demonstrate that the 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from the country's nuclear power plants can be stored there safely.
"Issues of health, safety, and security have been paramount during this process. . . . [They] are the driving factors in the decisions we have made," Bodman said.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader and a vocal opponent, said in a statement that he and other Nevada lawmakers "will continue working . . . to kill the dump," which most Nevada residents don't want in their state. In recent years Congress has repeatedly cut Yucca project funding in part because of Reid's strong opposition.
Edward F. Sproat, manager of the Yucca project, confirmed that the department now believes that the waste site many not open until 2020, assuming the NRC grants a license. And that target may not be met if Congress does not provide a steady money stream, he added.
A truck delivered tens of thousands of documents to the NRC's office in Rockville, Md., earlier in the day. The application itself covers 17 volumes and 8,600 pages and is supported by more than 200 other documents and studies.
But a key document is missing.
The application prepared for the NRC still lacks a final public radiation exposure standard that establishes how protective the facility must be from radiation leakage. The Environmental Protect Agency had issued a standard designed to be protective for 10,000 years.
