Friday, April 3, 1998 | 10:22 a.m.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa has filed a motion to dismiss a U.S. Department of Energy request for a permanent water right for building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Nevada State Engineer Michael Turnipseed had scheduled a pre-hearing conference for April 29 in Las Vegas. Del Papa submitted the dismissal request this week.
The attorney general's office contends that the DOE does not have the right to begin construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Since neither the president nor Congress has approved the site, the DOE has no authority to reserve the water, Del Papa argues.
"It is inappropriate for the Department of Energy to expect the state engineer to assist in the implementation of a federal waste disposal strategy when the difficult public policy question of whether to develop a repository, which federal law places in the hands of Congress, the president, Nevada's governor and Legislature, has not yet been resolved," Del Papa said.
The DOE filed its application for the water right in July.
The application has been protested by the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, Southern Nye County Conservation District, Amargosa Water Committee and Citizen Alert, a statewide environmental watchdog group.
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