Thursday, November 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Editor's Note: The good fight continues

The Yucca Mountain issue won't go away--just like the thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste the government wants to dump in Southern Nevada.

Sunday before last, "60 Minutes" examined the Yucca Mountain debate, and, all in all, Nevada's position against the project came off looking good. The program featured interviews with Sen. Harry Reid, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and other Nevadans who made good points and delivered several provocative sound bites.

One would hope an in-depth segment on America's premier television news show would capture the nation's attention, prompting thousands, if not millions of citizens to call their elected representatives and express alarm about the prospect of high-level nuclear waste being transported through their neighborhoods. Let's not get our hopes up.

That is not to say, however, that Yucca Mountain is a lost cause. Local people I've talked to lately generally think it's inevitable, that the war is over, that we fought the good fight and lost. But a handful of conversations is not a scientific sample.

I'm pleased to report that a new poll shows a large majority of Nevadans remain committed to the good fight. The poll conducted last month shows 75 percent of state residents are opposed to Yucca Mountain. This is roughly the same as it has been since such polls started being taken in 1989. More important, however, is that 65 percent of Nevadans oppose making a deal with the government to receive financial and other benefits in exchange for the nuclear dump. Furthermore, the poll shows, 66 percent of Nevadans support the state's lawsuits to stop the dump in court.

Indeed, the legal battle is far from over. The U.S. Department of Energy has bungled this project from the start. It has fudged the science, rigged the rules and, when caught in the act, tried to cover its tracks. Nevada lost the political battle last year when Congress overrode Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of the project, but the legal arena is different.

Nevada won a legal skirmish just last week. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the law firm hired by the DOE to prepare its license application had a conflict of interest. Turns out Winston & Strawn had worked for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry lobbying group, for six years before the DOE selected it to work on its license application. Oh, and by the way, Winston & Strawn didn't disclose this to the DOE when it sought the licensing work (i.e., it lied). The appeals court sent the matter back to the U.S. District Court. If the District Court judge agrees that Winston & Strawn had a conflict, the application process could be delayed while the firm's conflict-ridden work is reviewed.

This may seem a minor point, but it's indicative of the cavalier nature of the DOE's approach to Yucca Mountain. Time and again, this agency has exhibited an inability to follow rules, meet standards or handle with objectivity and scientific rigor the study of the most suitable place to put the nation's nuclear waste. Assuming a federal judiciary free of political influence, you have to believe Nevada's array of lawsuits could be successful in derailing Yucca Mountain.

What's more, the DOE still hasn't won the science war. Last week, new questions were raised about whether the DOE's plan to store the waste in metal canisters will work. The independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board warned that the canisters could corrode in less than 1,000 years when they are supposed to keep the waste separated from the environment for 10,000 years. The DOE will have to solve this serious challenge or risk being rejected for a license to open the repository.

Meanwhile, as the "60 Minutes" report emphasized, the DOE still doesn't have a solid plan for transporting the waste from nuclear power plants across the country to Yucca Mountain. This may be the single biggest obstacle the government faces, because the radioactive waste would be traveling through highly populated areas in dozens of states. Protecting those millions of people from the possibility of a tragic accident or terrorist attack is a very tall order.

Furthermore, the DOE is clinging to a disingenuous stance on the importance of storing its nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told "60 Minutes" that it would be easier to protect the waste from terrorists by keeping it in one place. But as Steve Sebelius explained last week in the Review-Journal's E-Briefing, "Nuclear waste will continue to be produced at the 39 sites around the nation--and any new ones that may be subsequently authorized--even after Yucca is up and operating. All the security risks that attend those sites now will persist into the future. What that means is this: In addition to the security risks at nuclear sites scattered around the country, there will be the additional security risk associated with protecting nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain, which is one more site that will need to be protected. The government is actually adding to the security burden, not lessening it."

Some Nevadans are understandably tired of hearing about Yucca Mountain. It's difficult, if not impossible to keep track of everything that's going on. But media fatigue is no excuse to throw in the towel on such an important issue. This war has just begun, and Nevada's prospects depend in part on the public's commitment to the fight. Hang tough.

--GEOFF SCHUMACHER

The Sierra Club is holding a community forum on Yucca Mountain at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Flamingo Hilton. The club's national president, Larry Fahn, will be the keynote speaker. For more information, call 732-7750.