Nevada officials rip interim storage plan

Robert Macy

Thursday, March 25, 1999 | 8:02 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - A bill calling for interim storage of nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site is "a legislative train wreck" that represents a massive waste of taxpayer money, Nevada officials contend.

Sen. Richard Bryan told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the bill "places 50 million Americans in 43 states, living within one mile of transportation routes for nuclear waste, at unnecessary risk."

"There is no need for a centralized interim waste storage site and Congress shouldn't be considering busting our budget to pay for one when it is cheaper and safer to leave the waste on site," Sen. Harry Reid told the committee Wednesday.

The committee is considering Senate Bill 608, legislation that would develop an interim storage facility at the test site, 65 miles northwest of here, until a permanent repository is licensed. Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only location being studied for a permanent site.

President Clinton has said he will veto any bill designating Nevada as an interim site.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Reps. Jim Gibbons and Shelley Berkley also submitted statements to the committee opposing the interim plan.

Bryan told the committee that the nuclear power industry "insists on pursuing a legislative train wreck that has failed in the past two Congresses, and is destined to fail again."

Bryan, D-Nev., said the current bill reduces fees the industry would pay for nuclear waste disposal, "exposing the American taxpayer to tens of billions of dollars of financial liability."

"This unmitigated assault on the environment - and the federal treasury - are being done in an effort to address the irrational, self-serving demands of the commercial nuclear power industry," Bryan said.

He charged the legislation would "subject Nevadans and millions of other Americans to unnecessary health and safety risks, all to provide a financial bailout to a dying industry."

Reid, D-Nev., said the nuclear power industry has been pushing for the interim storage bill for four years without success.

"The American public simply does not want thousands of tons of poisonous nuclear waste traveling through their backyard so that the utility companies can improve their bottom-line profit and loss statements," Reid said.

Reid said the nuclear power industry should focus on storing the waste - radioactive spent fuel rods - on site rather than shipping it across the country.

Guinn told the committee that Yucca Mountain, "according to all current data, will not function as a geologic repository."

The governor said that from 1976 to 1996, there had been more than 620 recorded earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50 mile radius of Yucca Mountain.

And he said transportation risks are "exacerbated by the evolving threat from terrorist action or sabotage."

"Spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste trucks and trains will make for new and potentially attractive targets, especially in the many urban areas through which they must pass en route to a Nevada facility," Guinn said.

Del Papa said the bill "could result in an environmental disaster beyond contemplation."

"We've all been reminded recently of how devastating a train derailment can be," Berkley said. "Now imagine that train with a full load of high level nuclear waste."

Gibbons called the Senate legislation "disastrous" and said Congress "should not risk the future of our citizens' safety, our environment, and our economy by willfully sending high-level nuclear waste to Nevada."