Environmental lobby set to turn up heat

Benjamin Grove

Monday, April 15, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Local, state and national environmental groups that have helped muster support against shipping nuclear waste in Congress face their toughest battle with Yucca Mountain.

The environmental lobby, which plans to gather at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday to pressure lawmakers to oppose the proposed nuclear waste dump, has a record of helping rally their friends in Congress on several key votes to defeat the measures.

In 1999, lawmakers rejected a plan to establish a temporary waste site near Yucca until the proposed permanent waste repository was approved and constructed.

And two years ago, when the House and Senate passed a Yucca-related bill to move up the project timeline, environmental groups and Nevada lawmakers had enough friends in the Senate to sustain President Clinton's veto -- by a mere two votes.

But this year's Yucca showdown promises to be even more difficult for anti-Yucca forces because there's a lack of public knowledge on the issue and the powerful nuclear industry lobby has pressed its influence in favor of the dump.

Observers expect the House in the next four weeks or so to approve the project overwhelmingly, effectively overriding a veto filed by Gov. Kenny Guinn last week. Many expect the Senate will pass it, too, although Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., are lobbying to convince their colleagues to reject the project.

Green groups aim to help out in record numbers by pressuring lawmakers in Washington and by trumpeting the risks of transporting waste through 43 states to Nevada. They are up against nuclear industry lobbyists who are touting a long record of safe waste shipping.

At least 47 national and 477 state and local groups are on record in opposition to Yucca Mountain, said Kevin Kamps, a waste transportation analyst with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. NIRS helped organize a rally and press conference set for Tuesday morning on the Capitol grounds.

"When people (in Iowa) heard 'Yucca Mountain a year ago, they had no clue what it was," said Michelle Kenyon, program organizer for Iowa Citizens Action Network, who plans to attend the rally and meet with Iowa senators. "Now people are coming to realize what Yucca Mountain is. What is more difficult is to get them to realize that waste has to come through Iowa."

The mushrooming army of activist groups are energizing for a final-hour effort to derail the project in Congress, Kamps said.

Activist leaders know that if the Yucca project wins congressional approval, only the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- or a brilliantly played court strategy -- could derail it for good.

A number of activists plan to descend on congressional offices after the rally Tuesday to talk to lawmakers or their staffers.

Among them will be Susan Alzner of the Connecticut branch of Citizens Awareness Network, a New England group that opposes nuclear power. Connecticut has two operating nuclear reactors and a decommissioned plant where waste is stored, Connecticut Yankee.

Alzner said scientific studies and government reports, like a critical one recently released by the General Accounting Office, do not support the Yucca plan.

Alzner often tries to generate discussions about "the ethics of waste."

"The worst thing we can do is inflict our suffering on another state," Alzner said.

Alzner wages battles with many people in her state who want the waste shipped to Nevada, and she understands the political pressure Connecticut lawmakers face. The state's Democratic Sens., Joe Lieberman and Christopher Dodd, have voted with Nevada senators on previous Yucca bills. But they have not announced their intentions on the upcoming vote.

Members of Alzner's group are trying to arrange meetings with Dodd and Lieberman's staff, she said.

"The utilities are working hard to get them to support Yucca," she said. "In Connecticut what we're up against is a lack of information in the public about Yucca Mountain."

In North Carolina, several grass-roots efforts are underway to pressure Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., to oppose Yucca Mountain. It is a tough sell.

Edwards, considered a possible presidential candidate, is under pressure from owners of the five operating nuclear reactors in the state. Nuclear plants produce about 32 percent of the electricity in North Carolina. And Edwards has voted in favor of Yucca legislation before.

"We've been working on Edwards for years," said Nora Wilson, project organizer for the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network. "Carolina Power & Light is the largest campaign donor in the state and they are a very powerful entity in these parts. I don't think he's willing to alienate them."

Wilson is making the trip to the nation's capital in part to meet with Edwards, or his staffers.

Wilson's group has met with Edwards twice to discuss their objection to expansion of a nuclear waste pool at the Shearon Harris Plant near New Hill, N.C. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year licensed the Carolina Power & Light facility to construct the largest waste pool in the nation. CP&L has been shipping high-level waste there from two other plants in the Carolinas.

Edwards embraced the plan despite protest from the community and municipal and county officials who were worried about waste transportation, said N.C. Waste Reduction and Awareness Network director Jim Warren.

After meeting with Edwards in February 2000, and again by telephone in March 2001, Edwards has largely ignored pleas from the group, Warren said. The group, which wanted more in-depth NRC review of the Harris plant waste pool expansion, protested at Edwards' Raleigh office in June last year.

"He went silent about the whole thing," Warren said. "It looked like he was more interested in protecting his relationship with the nuclear industry."