OT - Now our Government wants to make Las Vegas their Nuclear Waste garbage dump. I say NO!!! I will support 100% our Nevada legislation to fight this illegal move. Please support Nevada's and Las Vegas's fight by writing your congressman.
PS: All this after they wanted to drill for oil in the Alaska wilderness and Florida keys. Unbelievable!
Nevada moves to block Yucca Mountain as waste dump (Yukka Mt is just 90mil from Las vegas)
msnbc.com
Jan. 11 — Nevada voiced optimism Friday that it would be able to block — either in Congress or in the courts — the Bush administration from using Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear-waste site. Arguing that national security after Sept. 11 required a safe storage site, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Thursday recommended that President Bush give final approval to the site.
NEVADA GOV. Kenny Guinn, after being called Thursday by Abraham, said he would veto the expected approval by Bush.
“I explained to him we will fight it in the Congress, in the Oval Office, in every regulatory body we can ... This fight is far from over.”
“I told the secretary that I think this decision stinks,” he added. “The whole process stinks and we’ll see him in court.”
Guinn’s veto would first send the issue to Congress, which would have to approve or deny Yucca as the nation’s nuclear waste site.
Guinn’s chief adviser on the issue, Bob Loux, told MSNBC.com that even before Guinn’s veto, Nevada might sue to block the Energy Department’s decision.
If that doesn’t happen or fails, he added, “things look real good for us in the Senate,” where Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has supported Nevada’s claims.
The national security argument could bolster the administration’s case before Congress, but Loux said Nevada would counter that opening Yucca would mean 3,000 to 4,000 shipments of radioactive waste each year — shipments that could themselves become terrorist targets.
Loux added that Nevada’s last resort is a court strategy that includes two existing lawsuits. Even if Congress endorses Yucca, he said, “that still doesn’t dismiss the lawsuits.”
“We only need to win one, while they need to win all of them,” he added.
Loux earlier said one or more lawsuit would likely end up before the Supreme Court.
He also ruled out Nevada cutting any deals with the Bush administration and saw only one possible out of court solution: that the Energy Department “get the hell out of the state of Nevada.”
‘SOUND SCIENCE’ CITED
In his notice to Nevada, Abraham concluded that the site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was “scientifically sound and suitable” as a repository for highly radioactive, used reactor fuel now kept at commercial reactors in 39 states.
Abraham said “sound science and compelling national interests” as well as growing concern about nuclear materials since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks require wastes to be consolidated at a central site.
Bush, has championed the need for a central site and is expected to seek a federal license for the site in the coming months. Still, the earliest the site would open is 2010.
Power utilities have promoted the Yucca site as the most secure and safest place to put used reactor fuel, which is now kept at reactor sites. More than 40,000 tons of wastes already have accumulated at the plants, with 2,000 tons added each year.
The site, if finally approved and licensed, is expected to hold up to 77,000 tons of waste, buried in a labyrinth of bunkers 900 feet underground.
NEVADA OPPOSES
The government has spent $6.8 billion to study and dig part of the Nevada site since 1983. After reviewing three sites, Congress settled on Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the only location to be pursued.
But Nevada officials argue that despite two decades of intense scientific study the federal government has not adequately shown that the public can be protected from future radiation.
In a lawsuit filed last month, Nevada argued that the Energy Department abandoned a congressional mandate that the site’s natural geology must protect the public from radiation, including radioisotopes that will remain highly radioactive for more than 10,000 years.
Instead, Nevada contends, the latest design for the waste burial ground relies “nearly 100 percent” on engineered barriers to assure the waste’s isolation.
The design amounts to “a glorified waste package” that could be deemed scientifically suitable “even if sited on the shores of Lake Tahoe,” Guinn, a Republican, wrote Abraham last year.
“The notion that geological features must be the primary form of containment is ... explicitly required” by the 1982 law that is the basis for developing a nuclear waste repository, Guinn added.
DOE ON LAWSUIT
Energy Department officials dismissed the state’s latest legal action and strongly defended the use of both geology and engineered barriers.
“We’re not relying specifically on engineered barriers to meet the regulations. We are looking at the scientific evidence of both the geological and engineered barriers together to determine the site’s suitability,” said DOE spokesman Joe Davis.
“One doesn’t outweigh the other. They both work hand in hand,” said Davis. The department contends that Congress in 1992 cleared the way for use of a “total system performance” approach to safeguarding the waste.
But Loux said Congress also envisioned that the site’s geology “be the primary barrier” to isolate the waste and that the approach by the Energy Department “does not even come close to being in compliance the law.”
EXAMPLES OF PROTECTIVE DEVICES
In recent years, the scientists and engineers working on the Yucca Mountain project have incorporated more manmade protective devices.
For example, after concern was raised about the possible effect of water moving through the rocks, stronger and more corrosion-resistant canisters were added to the design. “Drip shields” were added to keep water from hitting the waste once the containers begin to disintegrate hundreds of years from now.
An alternative design spreads out the canisters to deal the impact of high temperatures on surrounding rocks.
These improvements only add to the site’s safeguards and do not detract from the fact that “the mountain performs pretty well” in protecting the waste, said Marvin Fertel, a vice president for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association. |
