Letter: Nevada residents would be losers in nuke dump siting

Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997 | 10:54 a.m.

Though this material is considered "spent," it will remain at dangerously high radioactive levels for many years and a suitable storage facility for it needs to be found.

A structure needs to be designed to carry out the intended function and built to withstand the different types of forces that may act against it.

A major threat to any storage facility, regardless of location, would be seismic disturbance. The uniform building code has areas of the U.S. zoned by degree of possible seismic hazard.

It is interesting to note that many of the states that are the benefactors and producers of these wastes are also located in areas of low seismic activity; Nevada is in seismic zone 2, which translates to a moderate-high hazard.

So then, why would these utilities want to go through the additional expense of transporting waste thousands of miles when they claim they have the technology to store it safely for the duration of its deadly existence?

Unfortunately, the Northridge, Calif., earthquake showed us that moment (earthquake) resistant design is still imperfect and much of the engineering is based on speculation. Structures failed that were designed to resist seismic activity of an even greater magnitude than which they were subjected to.

So, why again would these utilities want to gamble with our futures? Answer, why jeopardize their rate-paying clientele when they could just dump on a smaller population of people whom they view as economically insignificant to them.

The stakes are high, risk a little to win a lot, these folks are here to gamble. Unfortunately, we're the ones who may end up being the big losers.

Name withheld