Dole criticized for mobile Chernobyl

Thursday, April 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Environmental groups are calling Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's plan to vote on temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada an insult.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, introduced the measure to truck thousands of tons of radioactive waste from commercial nuclear reactors through 43 states to the Nevada Test Site.

Dole said he plans to bring Senate Bill 1271 to the floor either April 25 or April 26, prompting outrage from a coalition of 75 organizations and 22 individuals on the senator's poor timing. April 26 is the 10th anniversary of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster to date.

The environmentalists call the bill the "Mobile Chernobyl Act."

"Holding this vote on the 10th anniversary of Chernobyl is contemptuous and demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of the lessons of Chernobyl," the coalition wrote in a letter delivered to Dole's office Tuesday.

The environmentalists said that the high-level nuclear waste awaiting shipment contains 95 percent of the radioactivity created in the United States. "Moving the waste to an 'interim' site, even as evidence is growing that Yucca Mountain is not suitable for permanent disposal, could be a catastrophic mistake," the letter said.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas and 30 miles west of the Test Site, is the only site in the nation under study as a permanent dump for high-level nuclear waste.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., has already promised to filibuster the bill. President Clinton has promised to veto the proposed bill if it passes. Under existing law, high-level nuclear waste cannot be stored in a state with a permanent site under study.

Similar legislation in the House has stalled, although it has 200 sponsors.

The largest of the casks traveling by rail to Nevada contains long-living radiation equal to about 200 of the type of bombs dropped on Hiroshima, said Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a leading organization of the opposing coalition.

Another 30,000 signatures under petitions titled "Don't Waste America," were also delivered to Dole, said Rick Nielsen of Citizen Alert, an environmental watchdog group in Nevada.