Lawmakers wary of ‘sugar-coating’ nuclear waste

Sunday, April 4, 1999 | 10 a.m.

When state Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, proposed in February that transmutation be brought to the Nevada Test Site as a technical project, the rest of the Legislature balked.

Transmutation -- the process of transforming highly radioactive nuclear waste into nearly harmless elements -- sounds like a good alternative to dumping the waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but state officials do not want to support any plan that would open the state's doors to nuclear waste, even to make it less harmful.

Many lawmakers and state officials believe that once radioactive waste arrives in the state, even for a pilot project such as transmutation, it will stay. Forever.

Neal's proposal ran into trouble when critics noticed that offering the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as an experimental ground also meant shipping high-level nuclear waste from commercial power plants to the state for the experiments. Neal also urged his colleagues to begin negotiating with the Department of Energy over nuclear-waste management.

Neal told the Legislature that supporting transmutation research at the Test Site would bring in high-paying jobs and work unrelated to Nevada's major industry: gaming.

"Backing this project means doing well by doing good," Neal said. "Highly paid, high-tech new jobs for Nevada workers focuses on solving one of the nation's most vexing problems."

Neal warned the Legislature what might happen if it failed to support transmutation: "If the nuclear waste is shoved down your throat, you won't get any benefits."

No vote was taken, but Neal's bill was sent back to clarify the language. The senator had worded the legislation so that Nevada would negotiate with the Department of Energy on nuclear-waste storage in exchange for playing a major role in the transmutation project.

Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said Nevadans have believed for years that there was a better answer for nuclear waste than burying it. "The ultimate insult to Nevada would be to cram this waste down our throats and then leave us with none of the benefits," he said. Rawson was one of the senators who asked for the language in Neal's bill to be clarified.

Most Nevada lawmakers and Gov. Kenny Guinn do not want to get stuck with the waste while the technology for solving the problem -- and the funding -- go someplace else.

But the technology is likely to go elsewhere. With Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., backing transmutation, most research dollars are probably headed to Los Alamos, the Department of Energy's research leader and the national laboratory in Domenici's home state.

State officials did not welcome experiments with nuclear waste at the Test Site because they maintain this is not the time for Nevada to compromise, and allowing any waste in the state, even for research, is a compromise.

The state is already assuming it will face a court battle on Yucca Mountain and it may have to fight in court a plan working its way through Congress to temporarily store high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site, said Victoria Sobrinksy, Guinn's deputy chief of staff. President Clinton vetoed the temporary storage last year and has vowed to do so again this year.

The state's first responsibility, Sobrinsky said, is to protect the state's legal standing on nuclear waste so it can fight more effectively in the future.

"We're not opposed to transmutation, but once negotiations between the state and the DOE are opened, you lose your right of refusal," she said.

While transmutation may become a solution in the future, Nevada faces an imminent threat of nuclear waste today, and that is a fight in which the state can give no ground, said Lee Dazey, spokeswoman for Citizen Alert in Reno.

"We're wary of sugar-coating nuclear waste to make it more acceptable to Nevadans," Dazey said. "I think transmutation is important, but not in the same sentence as nuclear-waste storage."