Letter: Cash for Yucca is a terrible trade

Monday, April 22, 2002 | 8:51 a.m.

It is most amazing what a powerful and quite often dangerous icon that dollar sign can be. How it makes many people self-centered and forget that they are not the only ones around.

I speak of the ones who want to see the nuclear repository set up at Yucca Mountain. They see all the big bucks coming their way when it happens. There have been some of these people who tell about friends and relatives who work, or had worked, at the Test Site for years without any adverse affects.

They seem to forget that thanks to the good Lord there have not been any accidents. I pray that there never will be. These people seem to forget the military personnel who had at the inception of testing been ordered to be at the testing ground to witness the above-ground testing.

They forget the horror stories of veterans who died of cancer and those still alive but barely with cancer eating them up. All attributed to the nuclear effects on their bodies.

You also can rest assured that there are terrorist suicide bombers who will be most ready to strike at such a target as Yucca Mountain if it becomes a nuclear repository. One leak at the proposed repository and you have a potential "Armageddon" for the Western states.

JOSEPH MENDELSON