Nevadans continue to wait on Abraham

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials early today continued to await word that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had officially recommended that Yucca Mountain become the nation's nuclear waste burial ground.

A business news website, www.cbsmarketwatch.com, reported Monday that Abraham forwarded the recommendation to President Bush. But the Energy Department has not confirmed that. An Energy spokesman did not return phone calls to the Sun today or Monday.

Abraham was expected to make the recommendation to President Bush Monday. Bush is expected to approve the recommendation, possibly this week, which would trigger a formal veto of Bush's action from Gov. Kenny Guinn. Congress would then vote on the veto. Both the House and Senate are expected to override the veto.

The project faces other hurdles: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have to license the site as a waste dump, an approval process that would take several years. Waste would not be shipped to Yucca until 2010 at the earliest.

The Energy Department has been studying the desert ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas for 20 years. Nevada officials have long fought the project. Congress in 1987 tapped the site as the most suitable place to store 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste from U.S. defense sites and commercial nuclear power plants.

Nevada officials say scientific evidence data shows that the site is not safe, but Energy officials have said there is no evidence to stop the project.