In July 2004, a federal appeals court ruled that the leak-safety standards for the long-awaited nuclear waste depository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain were too weak. The Environmental Protection Agency would regard the facility as safe for only 10,000 years (almost five times the length of time since the birth of Jesus), which, they were concerned, was not a sufficient amount of time. One National Academy of Sciences panel had recommended against the site unless leak safety could be certified for at least 300,000 years.
More recently, the EPA issued a revised durability standard in response to the court's concerns. They now claim the site will be free of unsafe leaks for a million years. (Context: 110 years ago, science had not even discovered radioactivity.)
-New York Times
