Energy secretary set to meet with top Nevadans

Friday, Dec. 4, 1998 | 11:12 a.m.

Two members of Nevada's congressional delegation planned to meet with Energy Secretary Bill Richardson today in Las Vegas concerning the future of Yucca Mountain, the nation's lone site for a nuclear waste repository.

Richardson had scheduled a meeting with Gov. Bob Miller, Gov.-elect Kenny Guinn and state officials after he toured the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The energy secretary originally planned to come to Las Vegas strictly to meet with Department of Energy officials on the viability report due to Congress next year on Yucca Mountain. But after intense lobbying by Nevada's congressional delegation, he agreed to meet with state officials.

The offices of Sen. Richard Bryan, D.-Nev., and Rep.-elect Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., confirmed that they planned to be in Las Vegas today to meet Richardson.

Bryan has been a vocal foe of the storage of nuclear waste in Nevada both as governor and as a senator.

Miller's staff at the state Agency for Nuclear Projects had prepared information for the secretary on why Yucca Mountain should be disqualified. The main reason state officials cite is that contaminated ground water can flow off the site and into irrigation water used on crops in Amargosa Valley in less than 1,000 years.

According to the DOE's own rules, such rapid ground-water movement automatically disqualifies a site.

"I will be steadfast in my support of the governor's position," Berkley said. "There is no scientific, moral or ethical reason to put other states' nuclear waste in our backyard."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the new Senate Minority Whip, was tied up in meetings all day and did not plan to leave Capitol Hill until late today.

Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., who challenged Reid and lost, did not plan to attend the meeting.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., could not attend, but issued a statement urging Richardson to keep his promise to Nevadans that the DOE would use sound scientific evidence to prove Yucca Mountain fit or unfit for waste disposal.

"Any use of political badgering would be unthinkable," Gibbons said. "Nevadans' lives are at stake. We cannot afford to let politics take precedence over science in this matter."

The secretary should examine new evidence this week from mineral deposits discovered by a Siberian scientist that deep, hot water invaded Yucca Mountain and poses a future risk to any wastes buried there, he said. Geothermal activity could cause radioactive containers to corrode and release their contents into the water and the air.

"If the DOE fails to acknowledge these studies, then they are systematically dismissing concrete scientific evidence," he said.

"Secretary Richardson must not forget that the state of Nevada is 'Battle Born' entering the Union during the Civil War," Gibbons said. "Nevada's congressional delegation will never back down from our fight to protect our citizens from nuclear waste."