Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: It’s simple: Just say no

Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999 | 9:38 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

TELL ME what I am missing.

The Department of Energy has filed an application with the state of Nevada for the use of some 430 acre feet of water to be used, first to build and then to operate the nation's only high-level nuclear waste repository (that's government lingo for a radioactive garbage dump). It will be up to the state engineer, Michael Turnipseed, to determine whether to grant that request.

Let me make sure I understand what's happening. If Turnipseed grants the federal government's request for the 430 acre feet of water, the nuke dump, which almost every thinking Nevadan opposes, will be built just a few dozen miles from Las Vegas. If, however, he turns the government down, then barring an adverse court decision which could be years away, the dump would not be built.

So what's the problem? This is one of those no-brainer type decisions that state engineers and other officials make everyday to protect the health and welfare of the citizenry. No water, no dump. How much simpler can it get?

Obviously, it can only get more complicated because, so far, Mr. Turnipseed has not sent the feds packing. In fact, he has asked for more information from both sides -- that's the state of Nevada which opposes the dump, and the Department of Energy which wants to bury its problems in Nevada's desert not too far from the Entertainment Capital of the World. That's Las Vegas, home of more than 1.3 million men, women and children who, no matter how much we say "no," may soon be forced to accept the most deadly substance known to man in our own back yard.

It seems that our own state engineer has already determined that there is water available for the DOE to use to help bury us, our economy and our way of life under a cloud of radioactive contamination that could hit us on a moment's notice. He has, apparently, already decided that the issue of ground water contamination from escaping radioactivity from the dump is not his problem or in his bailiwick. All he needs to determine, according to the news stories, is whether granting the application is in the public interest.

Hello! All of those who think the public interest in Nevada will be served by allowing the water to flow to Yucca Mountain -- so that 70,000 tons of high-level radioactive poison can be shipped through our cities and buried just a few miles from the place where 34 million tourists are vacationing -- please raise your hands. And all of those who believe that keeping 70,000 tons of the nuclear waste stable and out of the environment -- that's air and water -- for 10,000 years so that future generations of Nevadans will not be subject to horrific deaths, is a sane approach to the waste issue, raise your other hands. And everyone who thinks that using a 19th century approach to garbage disposal -- burying it -- instead of a 21st century effort to use science to come up with a better answer, is in the public interest, raise whatever hands you have left.

I have never understood the benefit to Nevada of accepting for burial the most deadly poison known to man when every other state in the union is doing its best to get that stuff out of their own back yards. I do understand why the nuclear power players want the government to shove that stuff down our own Yucca Mountain because to them it is a matter of dollars and cents. Billions and billions of dollars to them and no sense to us.

What I am having trouble understanding, though, is what appears to be an attitude of Nevada's state engineer to bend over backward to find a way to give the much-needed water to the DOE. The fact that he hasn't already turned them down flat could give rise to the question, "Whose side is he on, anyway?"

And now it appears that 430 acre feet may not be enough. So how much does the DOE really need? That depends, witnesses say, on whether we are willing to allow the dump to reach the boiling point in the storage of the nuke waste. Huh?

Have we fallen into some Alice in Wonderland kind of place in which everyone who isn't nuts just seems that way? Are we really considering giving to the enemy the very water he needs to destroy the way of life we have managed to create for ourselves and our families? And while we consider just how nice we will be, are we using the water to make tea for those who couldn't give 2 cents for our lives and the health and safety of our children?

I hope Mr. Turnipseed is just playing a game with the feds. You know, the kind where he just plays dead long enough to catch them off guard. Because if he is at all serious about finding a public interest on Nevada's part to give the DOE the water to drown our futures in, then somebody needs to do something. And fast.

Nevada has very few arrows in its quiver with which to fight the combined power of the DOE, its congressional sponsors like Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and the trillion-dollar nuclear power industry. So who is Michael Turnipseed to even consider squandering the power we have over water, which may be our last best hope to delay or defeat this menace?

Like the letter from the collection agency says, Mr. Turnipseed, if you have already paid and are just playing possum, please excuse the tone of this column. If, however, you are seriously considering selling Nevada down the river, your immediate resignation is in order. That way Gov. Kenny Guinn can appoint someone who already knows where the public interest lies.

Assuming, I guess, that it is only the public interest that drives those who must make such decisions.