Editorial: Alaskans: Not in our back yard

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 5:10 a.m.

Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles is known for his indifference to the environment. After all, Knowles and Alaska's congressional delegation want to open up the environmentally fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and natural gas drilling. It would take something extraordinary, then, to turn Knowles into a veritable "tree hugger." Well, it just so happens that the prospect of England and France shipping nuclear materials to Japan by sea -- via the Arctic Ocean near Alaska -- has him scared silly.

What makes this deliciously ironic for Nevadans is that Knowles' fellow Alaskan, U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, has led the charge to bury 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Not only have we had to endure years of Murkowski's malarkey about how safe it is to bury nuclear waste here, but he also has told us how safe it is to ship it clear across the nation to Nevada. That, of course, brings us back to Knowles.

The Anchorage Daily News reported Tuesday that Knowles was so troubled about the prospect of radioactive substances spilling into waters near Alaska that he wrote Secretary of State Colin Powell. "Any accidental release of this material could have a devastating effect on the fragile Arctic environment and the health and welfare of the people who live there," Knowles said. Powell wrote back that Japan doesn't currently have plans for nuclear shipments through the Arctic Ocean. But if they did go forward, Powell wrote that the U.S. government would seek to ensure that "they would be carried out safely and without any risk to the environment." Hmmm. That sounds like the same hollow guarantees that Nevadans have received from the federal government (and Murkowski, too) about the Yucca Mountain Project. Good luck, Governor Knowles, you're going to need it if th e government treats Alaska the way it has dealt with Nevada.