Editorial: Nightmare is courtesy of the DOE

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 4:43 a.m.

Give the U.S. Department of Energy an important job -- like deciding where nuclear waste can be safely stored for the next 10,000 years -- and the agency will find a way to botch it. Last week's public comment hearing in North Las Vegas on the Yucca Mountain Project was no exception, with Nevadans once again getting shafted by the agency responsible for determining whether 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste should be buried in a repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Holding a public meeting isn't exactly teaching a lesson in physics or performing some other mind-bending task. It's simple. A microphone is rounded up. A hall or auditorium is reserved that is large enough so plenty of speakers can be easily accommodated. The meeting is publicized well in advance so that everyone knows where to go, and then it's set up fairly so that enough time is allotted for all sides to speak. But on all counts the DOE failed this basic test, which doesn't inspire confidence in the department's suitability study of Yucca Mountain nor in its ability to build a repository -- if it ever gets approval to do so.

The DOE's public comment hearing originally was supposed to be held at a local hotel-casino, but overcrowding concerns caused the Suncoast to bow out just days before the meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Rather than postponing the meeting for at least two weeks to ensure that the word got out about the new location, the DOE insisted on holding it on the same day it had been planned for. And instead of selecting a neutral location, the DOE decided to hold the public hearing at its barbed-wire ringed offices in North Las Vegas, which hardly lent a nice, friendly touch to the affair. Compounding the mistake, the DOE's public notice in the Federal Register included the wrong address for the hearing.

The DOE also showed its inhospitality by waiting until 6 p.m. to start the public comment portion of the hearing, a meeting held during the work week. And in a slap in the face to the residents of Nevada, the DOE rigged it so that six of the first nine speakers supported the nuclear power lobby's position, which is that a repository should be built at Yucca Mountain come hell or high water. The second speaker, Gary Sandquist, wasn't even from Nevada, he was from Utah. Sandquist, a Utah professor, had been asked to attend the meeting by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry's lobbying arm.

It wasn't until 9:30 p.m. that the first nine speakers finished their testimony. The meeting wasn't supposed to last past 9 p.m. By 10 p.m. more than 100 people left the meeting after they understandably grew impatient. The meeting didn't conclude until after 2 a.m. for the bleary-eyed Nevadans who toughed it out. The DOE's crafty scheduling maneuver meant that many Nevadans were prevented from making their opinions known on this critical matter, one that could imperil Southern Nevada's future.

This was a public hearing supposedly to get the views of Nevadans about the dangers of safely storing high-level nuclear waste, deadly garbage that would have to be shipped over crowded highways throughout the country into the heart of our city. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- a noticeable no-show at the hearing -- should be ashamed of how this meeting was conducted. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he is asking for additional meetings so that the public actually has a chance to be heard, a request that Abraham should honor.

The DOE's public comment hearing is just one more blunder in a long line of failures, including a suitability study of Yucca Mountain that has had blinders on when it comes to ignoring evidence showing how disastrous it would be to bury nuclear waste in Nevada. If President Bush genuinely is concerned about the health and safety of this state's residents, he would pull the plug on a Yucca Mountain Project that has spun out of control.