Nevada officials brace for Abraham visit

Monday, Jan. 7, 2002 | 9:20 a.m.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham for the first time today was to tour a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. And Nevada officials were ready for him.

Before Abraham left for the mountain, Gov. Kenny Guinn was to meet with the secretary in what his spokesman, Greg Bortolin, described as "a head-to-head session" over a pending recommendation of the site as the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository.

Guinn as well as every elected Nevada official opposes a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

Guinn's meeting with Abraham was to be private, but the opposition to a nuclear repository is shared by all of Nevada's officials.

Members of Nevada's congressional delegation were expected to attend a protest this afternoon in front of the George Federal Building.

The rally was designed to send a signal to the Energy Department that Nevada is united in opposing the burial of 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste inside the mountain, members of the delegation said.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., John Ensign, R-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., were expected to attend the rally. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., also a nuclear repository opponent, was traveling in India and was unable to attend.

Abraham, along with Reid and Ensign, was scheduled to tour the Nevada Test Site, which has been proposed as a center for training law enforcement and emergency crews in counter terrorism. The senators met with Abraham in November to pitch the proposal, but decided not to accompany him when the repository site tour was added to the schedule in late December.

Although Abraham attended a sparse public hearing on Dec. 12 in Las Vegas about DOE plans to bury commercial and defense nuclear waste inside mountain, this was the first time he has visited the site.

Abraham said last month that he had no deadline for a repository decision and would not make a recommendation to President Bush on Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, until he had toured the site. The repository, if recommended to Bush, is not expected to be ready before 2010.

"It's a pre-emptive strike to Abraham's visit to Yucca Mountain," Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said before the downtown rally.

"This is just a reminder to the secretary how vehemently opposed everyone is to it and that Nevadans are standing opposed to the Yucca Mountain Project," Hafen said.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, County Commissioner Myrna Williams and other state and local officials also were expected to attend.

Goodman said he plans to enlist mayors from across the country in fighting the transportation of nuclear waste from 103 reactors nationwide. Many of the sites are east of the Mississippi River.

"Look, it's going to be a war," Goodman said.

The mayor said he has already instructed City Attorney Brad Jerbic to prepare a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the project. "We're ready to go."

Herrera said it would be "irresponsible" for Abraham to recommend Yucca Mountain as a repository site.

"Honestly, I think it is quite premature for the energy secretary to move forward with a site recommendation when there are so many questions about Yucca Mountain," Herrera said.

"It's typical of the DOE on the visit," Williams said. "It's typical that DOE is back-dooring the people of Nevada. They change the rules in violation of the game and they change the law in the middle of the game."

The media, because of heightened security, were not permitted to accompany Abraham on the Yucca tour.