Editorial: Costs too high for nuclear waste dump

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1999 | 9:10 a.m.

Congress has ignored the repeated scientific objections to burying high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Maybe now it will at least consider abandoning this ill-conceived project -- if only because of the astronomical costs. As the Sun's Mary Manning reported Friday, even if the U.S. Department of Energy determines Yucca Mountain is scientifically viable, the agency believes that its preferred design to build a repository could add as much as $1.25 billion to its costs, which would bring it close to a total of $38 billion.

The DOE is worried that Congress may walk away from the project because it has become too expensive, a prospect Nevadans naturally would welcome. When confronted previously with evidence pointing out what a disaster Yucca Mountain would be, Congress' response has been to cut corners, attempting to make a square peg fit into a round hole. What Congress should do is halt the DOE's suitability study of Yucca Mountain. A better approach -- both scientifically and fiscally -- would be to investigate other options of disposing nuclear waste, including the highly promising area of transmutation that recently was touted by eminent scientists.

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