Yucca measure loses backing of lawmakers

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 11:24 a.m.

A Senate resolution lost support Thursday when 22 speakers voiced fears that it would send a signal to Washington that Nevada is ready to negotiate on harboring deadly nuclear waste.

Senate Joint Resolution 4, sponsored by Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas, was dealt its heaviest blow when two Southern Nevada lawmakers withdrew their signatures.

Sens. Maggie Carlton and Terry Care, both D-Las Vegas, said they had doubts about the intent of the resolution and did not want any hint of implied consent for bringing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada.

Thursday's testimony took place before the Senate Transportation Committee, which O'Donnell chairs.

As drafted by O'Donnell, the resolution urges the Energy Department to pay for building a rail line around the Las Vegas Valley to take highly radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of the city to the proposed Yucca Mountain site.

O'Donnell argues that Nevada needs to have an agreement in place if Yucca Mountain is designated as the nation's official repository for waste from the nation's nuclear power plants. He says he has not wavered in his opposition to bury waste at Yucca, but it is in the state's best interest to have a plan to guard the public health if Yucca is chosen.

He says a rail system designated for the transportation of nuclear waste would be far safer than hauling the radioactive material on public roads. Critics say, however, that any hint of negotiating for mitigating infrastructure would send a message to Washington that Nevada has resigned itself to the inevitable, that the state is implying its consent.

Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams, a former legislator and a vocal opponent of a Yucca Mountain repository, didn't see anything reasonable in O'Donnell's resolution.

"This resolution is inaccurate and misleading," Williams said, as O'Donnell interrupted her testimony three times.

At one point, O'Donnell warned Williams on her comments, "If they are true and factual, I will accept them. If they are not, I will call you on them."

The DOE could recommend a Yucca Mountain repository to President Bush and Congress at the end of this year. At the earliest, it would open in 2010.

O'Donnell asked each of 22 speakers whether they would choose trucks or trains.

Most, from Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa to residents of Pahrump, 25 miles southwest of Yucca Mountain, responded that they did not want to see nuclear waste anywhere in the state.

Robert Loux, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects, and his transportation coordinator Robert Halstead, warned O'Donnell that Nevada could sacrifice its legal defense if the resolution passed. The state is prepared to sue the government on several issues, Loux said.

"I do not believe the nuclear waste will come here," Las Vegas resort businessman Steve Cloobeck said. "Do you know of any federal project that the federal government suggested and a community vehemently opposed, that the federal government shoved it down their throat?"

Kalynda Tilges, nuclear issues coordinator for Citizen Alert, a statewide environmental watchdog organization, urged O'Donnell to join the fight against a repository instead of seeking a compromise.

"The waste will not come here," she said at the end of a four-hour hearing, "and if it does, it will be over my dead body."

archive