Letter: A sad, broken mountain awaits its fate

Monday, April 29, 2002 | 8:55 a.m.

I do not question that something has to be done to eliminate nuclear wastes, but any reasonable person knows by now that Yucca Mountain, an old mountain falling apart, an old mountain in volcanic and earthquake-prone surroundings that could very well soon consume it, is no place for a repository.

I'm sorry that $6 billion-$7 billion have been spent, but what that expenditure has revealed is that the mountain cannot be a safe repository. It's time to cut our losses and move on.

No objective, dispassionate observer can look at the facts and agree the mountain is a suitable site for a repository. We have to remember the Yucca studies are being examined by people over the entire world who, in their own countries, have not approved sites better than Yucca.

Congress has the opportunity to continue being held in high esteem, or it can reveal that it's being governed by something other than facts. A sad, broken mountain awaits its fate.

RON BOURGOIN Rocky Mount, N.C. Editor's note: The writer was the consultant to the town of Rolesville in Wake County, N.C., in 1984 when a site in that area was being considered by the Department of Energy as a potential high-level radioactive waste repository.