Columnist Benjamin Grove: President has two options to consider

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 4:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- You're the president. You're sitting behind Rutherford B. Hayes' old desk in the Oval Office. Yellow walls, nice curtains. Presidential seal on the carpet.

And Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommends Yucca Mountain as a suitable site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump.

Now what do you do?

Option 1: Give the go-ahead. The nuclear energy industry wants to ship their high-level waste to the Nevada site for permanent burial. And the industry has been good to you, gave you lots of money for the campaign. Their lobbying is intense.

Another equally compelling reason is that Congress promised those utilities back in 1982 that the government would haul the waste away. It's a broken contract that could cost taxpayers billions in utility lawsuits.

You believe that America needs nuclear power. It keeps the lights on for 20 percent of the nation. You made nuclear power a key part of your energy strategy. You called for a new generation of nuclear plants to be built in America. That won't happen without Yucca.

There's political pressure. A bunch of your former fellow governors with nuclear waste in their states want Yucca done yesterday. So do lots of lawmakers in Congress. Top House Republicans are in that group, including friends from Texas, Reps. Joe Barton and Richard Armey. Democrats and Republicans alike want waste shipped out of their districts.

Plus, consider the terrorism argument. That's on everyone's mind. The plants were never designed to hold so much waste. The stuff is piling up in pools and in outdoor, dry cask storage areas at the nation's 103 nuclear reactors. Sitting ducks for bad guys. Wouldn't it be better to get it all underground in one safe, secure location?

And you have lots of people telling you that Yucca Mountain seems like a safe place for waste, starting with your own energy secretary. Abraham tells you that the scientists at the Department of Energy have been studying Yucca for 20 years! Many of them have dedicated their careers to this project. If they say it's safe, Abraham assures you, it's safe.

Option 2: Don't approve the recommendation -- at least not yet. Maybe you could mull this over until after the elections. This would shock every Yucca project watcher in America. But consider the other side.

You're no scientist, so you rely on the DOE, the industry, and the contractors who know the project best. But the Nevada people seem to have come up with a number of scientists and other experts who say Yucca wouldn't be safe. They say volcanos could erupt, or earthquakes could crack the site open, or, more likely, water could flow through the mountain and carry radiation into the environment.

Short of the Egyptian tombs, humans have never tried to store something for 10,000 years or more. And those mummies aren't toxic. Who knows what could happen in 10,000, 1,000 or 100 years?

The Nevadans say the DOE is still trying to come up with answers to nearly 300 outstanding scientific queries. Is it prudent to rubber stamp something so important even after all this time?

When Nevada was singled out in 1987 as the only site to be studied for nuclear waste storage, Las Vegas was much smaller. Today the metropolitan area of Las Vegas, which is just 90 miles away from Yucca Mountain, has 1.4 million residents. People in Las Vegas don't want to live anywhere near this stuff. Would you?

The project is expensive. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada used the word boondoggle. That got your attention. You hate big government waste. Do you want to continue to throw money at something the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not approve?

Plus, consider the terrorism argument. Do you want 100,000 shipments of waste on the nation's roads and rails?

And the Nevada people keep saying there are safe alternatives. You could leave the waste where it is. Maybe the government could take over managing the waste for the utilities. And maybe someday technology will be developed that can zap waste and make it less radioactive. It would be expensive and take decades. Same as Yucca.

You told Gov. Kenny Guinn that you would think about what he said last week. He made a lot of good points. But so do some of your top advisers who say it's finally time to give Yucca the green light.

You told Guinn you had a very difficult decision to make. That's the only kind of decision you get when you're the president.

What do you do?

What would you do?