Monday, June 12, 2000 | 3:15 a.m.
Elko County Public Land Use Advisory Committee Chairman Warren Russell and vice chairman Don Decker presented the plan Thursday to Elko County commissioners.
Under their proposal, Nevada would receive patent to all federal land within its borders.
In exchange for that, the state would willingly accept nuclear waste material from throughout the nation at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, the Elko Daily Free Press reported.
Decker argued that ground around the Nevada Test Site - the nation's nuclear testing facility for decades - is already contaminated.
Nuclear waste is a fact of life, he said. Instead of rejecting and fighting the federal government on the issue, Nevada should use it to its advantage in exchange for land.
"This is the perfect opportunity for Nevada to just say yes" to nuclear waste for the benefit of both the state and the country, he said.
"If we do not accept it, it will be forced upon us," he said
Commissioners appeared open to the plan and suggested Decker present the idea to the Nevada Association of Counties and the Legislature's Public Land Use Committee in the coming months.
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