Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: An alarming revelation

Thursday, March 2, 2000 | 9:29 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

Ok, what do we do now?

I am not usually an alarmist. It is not my nature to jump to conclusions and cry wolf without some very good reason to do so. That's why I am not screaming from the rooftops about what I read in the Sun Wednesday night. Calm. I am just trying to stay calm because this could all be just one big misunderstanding.

But what if it isn't? What if Mary Manning's report about ground water contamination in Nye County is right? What if the experts are correct in their belief that ground water outside the boundaries of the Nevada Test Site contains radiation that is 25 times higher than the allowable federal drinking water limit?

You see what I mean? I don't want to cry out loud but I am not sure what to do when Nye County's experts tell us that radiation is now in the ground water which, according to gravity and other scientific phenomena, will eventually make its way toward the population and food-growing centers of Nevada. And what then? To the milk dairies of Southern California?

This is quite a predicament as you can well imagine. I suppose the best thing to do is wait. I remember when the Sun reported about fish in Lake Mead that were, to say the least, deformed. That led to an investigation of the cause, which led to uncovering all kinds of ugly things being dumped into Southern Nevada's drinking water resource. We waited a long time for the scientists to confirm what everyone knew in their gut. Chemicals that shouldn't have been allowed to leak into Lake Mead got there. In the meantime, the bottled water producers have made out like bandits.

So, do we increase our orders for bottled water and wait for the scientists to tell us how radiation that is 25 times greater than allowable limits got into our ground water? Or do we march on the Test Site and demand that all records of nuclear testing be released immediately in the interests of public safety and health so we can determine if the government has been holding out on us? Or do we stick our heads deeply into the desert sands and pretend that whatever is in the water and whatever put it there is too big for us to deal with and just let our government take care of fixing the problem? Not!

The story quoted a Nye County commissioner who said the whole thing could be a mistake. Or, he said, the radiation could be the result of natural causes -- leaking into the ground water from Nevada's rock formations. Scientists, he claimed, are trying to determine whether the radioactivity in the water is natural or man-made -- like from the Test Site -- but he was alerting the public in the interest of health and safety.

Great. So, back to my first question. What are we supposed to do now?

If the reports are true and the radiation levels are as high as the experts believe, do we allow our children to continue drinking the water? Is it safe for the dairy farmers in Nevada to continue watering their milk cows? Is any of that water making its way to the alfalfa and hay fields that are grown in Nevada, and is it used to feed cows in neighboring California and elsewhere?

These questions have nothing to do with what is causing the problem and everything to do with how we react to it. If it is safe to drink water that is 25 times more polluted by radioactivity than the federal standards allow, why are the federal limits so low? Who else in the United States may be drinking water with similar amounts of nuclear toxins mixed in? If there are others, what kind of tests are being performed to make sure they and their offspring are healthy? And if there are no others, why is it that Nevada is the only place where this happens?

You must have noticed that I haven't once blamed the radioactive water on the Nevada Test Site. The scientists may come to that conclusion by themselves. What I am thinking about is the possibility that the water is naturally polluted with the deadly radioactivity and how much more it may be diminished by possible leaks from a nuclear waste dump that the government is trying to force down our throats not far from the Test Site.

If it is already 25 times worse than it should be; how much more dangerous will it be if the dumpsite leaks what the government deems allowable from nuke dump operations? Thirty, 40, 50 times? At what point should we all just pack up and bug out of this fabulous place in the sun because the water is so bad that, even though it is everywhere, there may not be a clean drop to drink?

So, you see, this is not an easy problem to solve. There are seemingly no simple answers to this great big mess we have allowed ourselves to get into, but there is one answer to the question, "What do we do now?"

And that is to oppose anyone and everyone who even thinks that putting a nuclear waste dump in our back yard is a good idea. At least until they can guarantee that leaks won't occur and accidents will not happen. If we made a foolish mistake before by trusting the government apparatchiks with their nuclear games, we would be deadly fools to do it again.

Hey, government: Clean up our water. Guarantee our health and safety. And only then come talk to us about messing it up all over again.

Calm. Just stay calm.