Letter: One centralized nuke waste site in Nevada makes sense

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 1:52 a.m.

Now, Judy Treichel, who works for the state, wrote a bold column on Oct. 1, saying the local resorts should help finance the anti-nuclear grass-roots groups. Well, the resorts have helped the anti-nuclear cause in the past, but is it really the state's position to be out there campaigning for donations?

We owe a lot to the resort industry, and they don't make a move without doing their research. I don't think you'd see Bellagio or The Venetian going up if they were worried about the impact Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of town, may have on their bottom line to attract the high-end clientele.

I'm a local and I admit I don't frequent the hip Hard Rock, but many of my friends go there and make their plans every year to attend the professional beach volleyball tournament; and my friends have told me about the small but attractive features of The Joint, where the Hard Rock holds its concerts, so it makes all the sense in the world to host an environmental event, where you don't get the largest turnout, to have it at the Hard Rock. I just don't know if bringing rock stars to fight a technical project does much to help Nevadans. They don't live here, they don't know the issue, they've never been to the Test Site or Yucca Mountain.

Treichel is correct; Nevada doesn't produce high-level waste, but it's widely known some of the electricity Nevada Power purchases off the grid comes from nuclear power plants in Arizona and California, so we do benefit from nuclear power.

Congress has Yucca Mountain in its scope, and we are the target to solve this dilemma, where right now we have more than 70 interim storage sites in more than 40 states, one centralized site at the Test Site that has successfully managed nuclear projects since the early '50s makes all the sense to me. I know, I used to work out there.

Let's be solvers, not obstructionists who like to be anti-everything. It's OK to oppose, but come up with an energy source to replace 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply.

Bill Vasconi