Editorial: Trying to steamroll waste into our state

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Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 9:39 a.m.

The U.S. Department of Energy has no shame when it comes to ignoring fairness in its study to see if Yucca Mountain in Nevada can safely store 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. As the Sun's Mary Manning reported Wednesday, the DOE is seeking to change the standards it issued in 1996 that would stop a repository at Yucca Mountain from being built, such as ground water moving too fast, an earthquake or volcanic activity. In the DOE's latest proposal, no single factor could disqualify the repository from being built.

The change is absurd. If there is a danger that only one hazard could harm public health and safety -- such as ground water becoming contaminated -- that should, in and of itself, be a show stopper. What is obvious is that the DOE's call for relaxed safety standards is an implicit admission that a repository containing man's deadliest waste can't be built to stringent -- yet necessary -- guidelines.