Yucca opponents may send message on radio

Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

Nevada opponents of a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, may take their message to the airwaves through radio talk shows.

The aim is to inform listeners throughout the country of the radioactive threat to residents nationwide who live next to routes where high-level nuclear waste will be shipped if Yucca Mountain becomes the world's first repository.

That's one idea two new members have brought to a statewide panel to protect the public's health, safety and welfare from a repository at Yucca.

Paul Workman and Tom Warden joined the Commission on Nuclear Projects at Lake Tahoe earlier this month for an informal exchange about protecting the future of Nevada's residents and visitors from truckloads of nuclear waste heading for Yucca after 2010, if the mountain passes scientific muster.

They agreed that transporting highly radioactive wastes from commercial nuclear reactors through 43 states puts Yucca Mountain in everybody's back yard.

Workman, a 15-year resident of Las Vegas, said he brings a practical, businessman's approach to the problem of spreading word of the dangers posed by shipping nuclear waste from the grass-roots level.

The state cannot use federal oversight funds to drum up public objections to nuclear waste, so it needs to get the word out in a clear, concise way, said Workman, a senior vice president for BankWest. A report the commission will prepare for the Nevada Legislature next year is a perfect medium to start.

That way, the report could not be used as political ammunition during the November election, he said.

Instead of sending the report to Nevada lawmakers alone, Workman said the message -- written in simple language and appealing to reason -- should go to every U.S. Congress member as well. "We want to arm people with reason wherever they be," he said, "and then hold them accountable."

Warden, vice president of community relations for the Howard Hughes Corp., agreed. "The nuclear repository is in our back yard, but the nuclear heavy-haul routes are in everybody's back yard," he said.

The big issue is for Nevadans to focus on the transportation of nuclear wastes if a repository opens at Yucca after 2010, Warden said.

For Agency on Nuclear Projects Executive Director Bob Loux, the two newest members of the commission injected some energy into a panel that has carried the oversight of the U.S. Department of Energy's work at Yucca for years with little money or encouragement.

Funding such communications tools is legal under the agency's current budget, Loux said. The commission is required to report to the governor and the Legislature, and all $250,000 of the commission's funding this year comes from state sources, he said.

In 1995 the state lost $5 million a year of federal oversight funds it had received since 1989 after a congressional audit accused the state's office of lobbying against the dump. Nevada should receive $2.5 million after Oct. 1, Loux said, and the funds will not be used for the report or the radio campaign, but for scientific oversight.

"It's refreshing to get some new blood on the commission," Loux said. "We've been at it so long trying to get the word out it's hard to see the forest for the trees, let alone the trees themselves."