Mayor’s idea for nuke waste found offensive

Erin Neff

Friday, Feb. 11, 2000 | 11:38 a.m.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's first attempt to block potential nuclear waste storage in Nevada was considered illegal.

But his suggestion this week that the waste be shipped to a "Third World nation" is already being seen as inappropriate.

Goodman apologized Thursday to a man in the audience for his speech during the Air Waste and Management Association meeting Wednesday at Palace Station.

"I said to them, 'why doesn't this go to some Third World country who could really use the money, and use it to feed the folks in the Third World, and solve their medical problems,' " Goodman said during his weekly press briefing Thursday.

Goodman said one man took offense to the remarks, "especially since he was speaking with an accent like from Barbados or Jamaica."

In an interview after the press briefing Goodman said he may have been politically incorrect with his statements, but he believes the idea is a good one.

The federal government's offer of financial aid to Nevada to store the waste might be money a developing nation would welcome, he said.

But do they want the waste Goodman referred to as unsafe and "crap?"

"While we might transfer the problem to someone else, I don't think that's the moral thing to do," said Tom Wright, a professor of Latin American history at UNLV. "If this is such a difficult decision for us, how can we expect a developing country to have any success handling this waste?"

The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a bill that establishes rules for shipping nuclear waste to Nevada. President Bill Clinton has threatened to veto the bill and Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he has the 34 votes needed to sustain the veto.

The Department of Energy has proposed storing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"I asked 'why Nevada, and why not someplace else?' " Goodman said. "Why don't we ship it to a country outside of the United Sates rather than using Nevada as the armpit?"

Wright said he thinks that policy may be a quick fix for the United States but would have troubling ramifications for whichever country gets the waste.

"In the long run that would be a difficult policy," Wright said.

Goodman said he thought U.S. military forces could "guard it over there."

"A lot of countries aren't as economically fortunate as we are," Goodman said in an interview. "I'm sure they'd make a lot of money and I don't know why we're not negotiating with the countries.

"I said Third World countries when I should have said a country other than the United States," he added. "I was just trying to say we don't need it in the United States. Let's put the nuclear waste in another country and pay them for it."