Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Benjamin Grove: A tale of two mountains — Yucca and Wasatch

It's the transportation issue, stupid.

That was the key message emerging last week from anti-Yucca Mountain forces in the nation's capital.

Having failed to convince President Bush that the site is geologically unsuitable to be a national nuclear waste burial ground, Yucca foes now turn to the courts and Congress. Lawmakers will vote on the fate of the controversial project, possibly by mid-year.

Nevada lawmakers have several strategies designed to derail the project, including filing lawsuits that question both the site's suitability and a variety of Department of Energy actions.

Nevada lawmakers and environmental groups are also racing to deliver a message nationwide: nuclear waste could be rumbling through your town as soon as 2010.

It's a uphill battle that promises no victories. It centers on mustering grassroots support in towns and cities nationwide in order to pressure lawmakers to vote against the Yucca plan.

It's an uphill battle for several reasons. The powerful nuclear industry is already mustering its forces on Capitol Hill. Their lobbyists plan to talk to every member of Congress, or at least top aides in each office.

And many lawmakers already have their minds made up, a number of Yucca project watchers say. The House is likely to overwhelmingly overrule Nevada's official objection to Bush's endorsement, just as soon as it lands in Congress.

A vote in the Senate could be closer, but Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he has maybe 40 senators on his side. He needs 51.

To that end, Yucca project foes rallied on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Valentine's Day, just hours before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca to Bush.

"That's not a very nice Valentine to send to the American people," anti-Yucca activist Kevin Kamps told the gathering.

Kamps, who works for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, owns a mock nuclear waste cask emblazoned with the words "Mobile Chernobyl," which he typically hauls behind a rented sport utility vehicle to anti-nuke events.

For the occasion, NIRS rented a bright red semi-trailer complete with driver. Kamps managed to have it parked just north of the Capitol grounds. Activists pounced on the fact that police wouldn't let him drive it any nearer to the Capitol.

"They won't clear a cask that doesn't even have any waste in it in because of security concerns, but it's safe to let casks filled with radioactive material travel on the highways and through major population centers?" asked Wenonah Hauter, of Public Citizen.

Hauter said her organization will be part of a nationwide effort to hold rallies across the nation in the coming months.

Meanwhile Nevada lawmakers are still mulling how to use video footage they recently obtained that shows a small missile piercing a nuclear waste transportation container in a 1998 test. It may prove that the containers are susceptible to terrorist strikes, sources say.

At the rally, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., invoked the image of a Yucca shipment turning into a "dirty bomb."

"We are talking about the most dangerous substance known to man on our roads and rails going past our schools and synagogues and churches in our small towns and cities," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said, preaching to the choir of roughly 50 anti-Yucca activists who cheered her words. "This is an outrage!"

Not everyone in the crowd was applauding. Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes watched quietly and later said rally participants had "grossly exaggerated" the risks of waste shipments. Lost in the rhetoric was the fact that shipments of high-level nuclear waste have been conducted for 35 years -- all without a radiation leak, Kerekes said.

"We've done it safely -- and we'll continue to do it safely," Kerekes said. Lots of lawmakers agree.

Still, the Nevadans' message may be dribbling out. One mayor -- an acting mayor, anyway -- showed up at the event. Takoma Park, Md., on the northern edge of Washington, D.C., is a nuclear-free zone, said Bruce Williams. But Williams outlined a painful point from the Nevadans' perspective: "We're restricted in what we can do at the local level because it's the federal prerogative to regulate interstate commerce. We're going to have to rely on our federal colleagues up here."

Even if the Yucca foes do manage to cobble together some kind of meaningful "transportation issue" campaign on the road, it's a long shot to show results. And it may be too late.

As the media blasted from one Olympic story to the next last week, stopping to milk the Canada-or-Russia figure skating controversy, I was watching Picabo Street.

On the media-meter, the freckled U.S. skiing star's final Olympic race was ranked well below the skating scandal and even seemed overshadowed by the U.S. men's snowboarding sweep.

I guess that's because Street cruised to a disappointing 16th place in the Wasatch Mountains. After all the television commercials and pre-Olympic attention, the media seemed to let Street fade quickly and quietly.

But as I watch the sometimes syrupy, flag-waving NBC coverage of the Olympics from Washington, a city where jingoism sometimes gets out of control, Street seemed like the most compelling and genuinely American story of the Games.

Street endured three major knee surgeries, the most recent in 1998, but she was determined to mount a comeback. She endured rigorous physical therapy and dealt with periods of depression with the help of psychologists.

She was among the favorites at her third and last Olympics, chasing her third medal. She shot out of the starting gate in a helmet emblazoned with stars and stripes, a bald eagle, F-16 fighter jets, and the Statue of Liberty.

And, yeah, she lost the race. But Street won hearts because her story is emblematic of America's story -- a classic tale of perseverance. She was on top of her game, then suffered a crushing blow, and learned fear. She battled pain, and healed. She raced down the hill again. And she let us share the ride.

When Street got to the end of her run, her body sagged with disappointment. But buoyed by the crowd, she raised her fists in the air, and a moment later, took a bow.

The fans roared. They applauded her guts, her class, her comeback.

Street told an NBC interviewer she was going to get married, raise a family and move on to chapter two in her life.

After the race, with a television camera intruding on the moment, Street also embraced her father.

Stubby Street told the Associated Press, "I'm not sad, I'm very proud of her. She persevered. She got back on that horse. And there's no better way to retire than after you've climbed back in the saddle."

America has been doing a lot of that in recent months. So it was fun watching Street ride off, happily, into the sunset.

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