Editorial: Encouraging news this week on dump

Friday, Nov. 12, 1999 | 8:40 a.m.

First, the good news involving politics and Yucca Mountain: There won't be a vote in Congress this year to make it easier to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. But the bad news is that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., vowed Wednesday to raise the issue next year.

Meanwhile on the scientific front this week, it appears that water -- too much or too little, depending on the circumstance -- may haunt Yucca Mountain. For starters, if scientists determine that water coursed through Yucca Mountain within the past 2 million years, it's possible that water could flow through the mountain again. That could make a repository too dangerous, since the canisters holding the waste could corrode and leak. And even if Yucca Mountain is selected, the Department of Energy acknowledged that construction could be delayed because it won't have enough water to build and operate such a facility.

All in all, it wasn't a bad week for Nevadans regarding Congress' irresponsible plans to place a repository here.