Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Growth panel sends wrong message to rest of nation

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.

DICK BRYAN does not stand alone.

A headline in last Thursday's Las Vegas SUN declared that Nevada's U.S. Senator Dick Bryan "stands alone against growth panel leader." The headline was accurate because it reflected a story that said our junior senator was basically crying in a wilderness full of movers and shakers when he suggested that an out-of-state facilitator for a local planning group be fired because she works for a company whose job it is to help the government locate the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

It is true that when the Southern Nevada Strategic Planning Authority (SNSPA) voted on whether or not to fire Amy Dirks Stevens from the job of helping to lead the planners into the next century, the count was 17-1 in favor of keeping her. Ms. Stevens represents Jason Associates Corp. of San Diego, which has also been hired by the government to conduct an environmental assessment of Yucca Mountain. It will be that company's work product that will help pave the way for tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste to come rolling through Southern Nevada on its way to Yucca Mountain. Just so no one is confused, the Department of Energy would not hire anyone it didn't believe would help justify its end goal of placing the nuke waste dump just a few miles from Las Vegas.

For her planning efforts, Ms. Stevens' company will be paid $238,000. For that same company's work for the government, the price tag will be in the millions of dollars. One of the concerns expressed was that a conflict of interest exists. I don't believe it. It is abundantly clear to anyone not on that planning committee that there is no conflict of interest. If you hold hundreds of thousands of dollars in one hand and put that up against millions of dollars in the other, a conflict is impossible. It is what's known in the business as a slam dunk and we are on the receiving end of the bad news. I don't know how the 17 members of the local planning group could have missed that simple lesson in arithmetic.

Perhaps it was a sense that the efforts of the SNSPA were too important to allow any distraction to impede their progress. That's a good excuse. Or, perhaps there was a sense that the facilitator could only facilitate and not lead the group toward any specific conclusion and, therefore, her role was modest and immaterial. That could be another good excuse. Or, finally, there might have been a sense that Ms. Stevens and her company were too important because of other work they were doing in Clark County to spoil the good thing they had going. That would have been a lousy excuse.

Whatever the excuse, it pales in comparison to the message her hiring and continued employment sends to the people in this country who have been trying without success and waiting past their patience points to find and exploit a crack in the almost unbeatable resolve that Nevadans have had to oppose the dump. And now, for the sake of who knows what, that message has been sent. Rather than remain consistent in our position that anyone desiring to place the nation's radioactive garbage in our backyard is inimical to the health, safety and sanity of Nevadans, we are now saying it is quite all right to serve both the masters of Nevada--the mothers and fathers -- and the puppet masters in Washington who have done all they can to solve their problems at the expense of the Silver State.

No, Dick Bryan does not stand alone. Only in that room full of people who are too conflicted to see past the trees into the forest of a better and healthier tomorrow does he find opposition. There are more than a million Nevadans who stand with him, shoulder to shoulder in his efforts to do all he can to stop that dump from ruining our lives.

Does this mean the SNSPA cannot perform its work? No. But it does mean that its work product will be tainted by the knowledge that whatever it proposes must be considered in light of the fact that the rest of the country wants to shove its radioactive waste problem down our Yucca Mountain. What could and should have been an unassailable piece of good community work -- how to grow Southern Nevada in the best and most efficient way possible, will be blighted by a failure to come to grips with a mistake.

It is as simple as that. It was a mistake to hire her and a bigger mistake not to make the change once the nature of the conflict became known. The deed is done and the work of the SNSPA must and should go forward. I just hope that those who pray for such blunders on our part don't take too much heed in what we have countenanced by inaction. If they do, though, they will learn that Dick Bryan does not and will not stand alone.

He has the future of our children standing on his shoulders.