Environmental group believes firm is trying to get Yucca money

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 3:58 a.m.

In a letter received this week by members of the group, Citizen Alert, in nine Nevada counties and one California county, Executive Director Rick Nielsen claims the Las Vegas consulting firm Robison-Seidler Inc. is "the nuclear power industry's paid public relations firm in Nevada."

One of the affected counties, White Pine County, hired the firm for about $75,000 of the county's approximate $150,000 it receives from the Nuclear Waste Fund to monitor activities at Yucca Mountain, Nielsen said.

Robison-Seidler partner A.C. Robison said his company's contract with White Pine County is for about $80,000. He acknowledged that he and several employees in the firm have worked for the Department of Energy, which gives them "valuable insights in serving the needs of our clients."

Yucca Mountain, a volcanic-rock ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site the Department of Energy is studying for the storage of the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

"Since oversight funding comes from the Nuclear Waste Fund, paid by the ratepayers of all nuclear utilities, essentially what we have is the nuclear industry taking its ratepayers' money and paying its own consultants to provide oversight on a project in which they have a major vested interest," Nielsen said.

The memorandum, dated Jan. 22, urges Citizen Alert members to tell commissioners in the affected counties not to make pacts for Yucca Mountain Project oversight with "a firm so closely linked (to) the nuclear power industry."

Robison denied there is a potential conflict of interest with the services his firm provides to any county affected by the Yucca Mountain Project.

"I'm not a paid, public relations firm for NEI," Robison said, referring to work the firm does for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group that promotes disposing of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain.

"I'm paid by NEI to give my best insights on how to respond to the needs of the people of Nevada," Robison said Tuesday.