Letter: Residents must resolve to fight dump

Friday, April 13, 2001 | 3:30 a.m.

We all need a wake-up call for the people of the Las Vegas Valley on the issue of dangerous buried nuclear waste. Most educated, rational citizens would agree that this project to transport and store high-level nuclear waste in an earthquake-prone hill only 90 miles from a population center is foolish. Now is the time for all of us to fight to see it never happens.

This project may have been plausible when Las Vegas was a sparsely populated area. Now, with all this growth and further scientific evidence of underground water throughout Yucca and the entire surrounding region, it has become a threat to millions of residents and homeowners.

Now the presidential budget and the pro-nuclear Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham have gilded the path for this project. Tell your government officials that we don't want our property values to go down 30 percent or more! Demand this not be dumped on us.

The federal government can tell us it will be safe, but don't believe it. They are the same agency that told soldiers 50 years ago it was safe to walk into ground zero after a nuclear blast.

How will our rights be affected if there is a breach of a transport container or when it is stored in the mountain at the discretion of the government. If just one baby develops leukemia as a direct result of this project how will that affect everyone's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

JERRY LEINWAND

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