Editorial: Gray Lady all wrong on Yucca

Tuesday, April 23, 2002 | 8:43 a.m.

In a Sunday editorial the New York Times assured its readers that Nevada is just playing politics with its warning about the danger of transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The newspaper dismissed the state's ads last week that described transportation threats, writing that they were "no reason for Congress to abort a promising plan before the issues can be analyzed." Despite the Times' implication that Nevada somehow is bringing up the issue belatedly, it is the Department of Energy that for more than a decade has stonewalled Nevada's efforts to get the federal government to own up to the dangers associated with shipping nuclear waste clear across the country.

The federal government won't level with the public on the issue of transportation because to do so would increase opposition to the Yucca Mountain project. The New York Times, the same paper that broke the Pentagon Papers story that detailed 25 years of government deception in Southeast Asia, meanwhile is telling its readers to have full faith in the government's word that it can safely move nuclear waste through their cities and villages onward toward Nevada for at least the next 30 to 40 years.

Particularly unnerving was the Times' argument about "two salient facts" that Nevada is "ignoring." First, the Times says, spent fuel rods "have been shipped in small quantities for decades now with no obvious harm to the public." The key words here might be "small quantities" -- as everyone knows, they would not apply to Yucca Mountain. Several paragraphs later the editorial acknowledges that in the transporting of these small quantities, there have "only" been four truck accidents and four rail accidents. While the Times should have been aware of last week's tragic Amtrak accident, and its implications for transporting by rail the world's most deadly substance, it must not have been aware of a 1996 Department of Energy report that also detailed 72 "incidents" -- four of which involved "accidental radioactive material contamination beyond the vehicle."

Second, the Times says, "whatever new risks may emerge with more numerous shipments in an age of terrorism will have to be addressed in detail by federal regulators before they approve the burial plan." Well, that salient point isn't comforting. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would have to sign off on Yucca Mountain, and whose decisions frequently reflect the nuclear power industry's point of view, has "found very little likelihood of an accident that would release enough radioactivity to harm the public." Surprise, surprise. But how little is very little? How little of a chance can we afford to take? That's what Nevada is asking.