Editorial: One more reason to end nuke dump

Thursday, Sept. 27, 2001 | 8:55 a.m.

The Nevada congressional delegation is on the right track in renewing attention to the terrorism dangers posed by the transportation of high-level nuclear waste. If a high-level nuclear waste dump is built at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, it would take an estimated 100,000 separate shipments by truck and train to send all of the waste here -- a frightening prospect after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.

The Achilles' heel of Yucca Mountain always has been the dangers posed by transportation, whether from an accident or by an act of terrorism. And the ability of terrorists to orchestrate their attacks this month shows just how vulnerable the shipping of man's deadliest garbage along our highways and railroad tracks would be. It also deserves mentioning that Attorney General John Ashcroft acknowledged Tuesday that 20 people, including some who have ties to terrorists, have been charged with fraudulently obtaining driver's licenses to haul hazardous waste. Not exactly a comforting picture.

Yucca Mountain is an unsafe location to store nuclear waste because of geologic reasons. And the recent terrorist attacks demonstrate that shipments of nuclear waste themselves could be tempting targets, another reason why the federal government should shut down the Yucca Mountain Project and safely leave the waste at nuclear power plants until promising technologies are developed that can render it less harmful.