Goodman talking to mayors in D.C.

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2002 | 10:06 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Mayor Oscar Goodman at the White House today missed his chance to bend the ear of President Bush on the topic of nuclear waste, but he is cornering fellow mayors.

Goodman was the last to join about 300 mayors assembled in the East Room for a speech about homeland security this morning -- his name was left off a clearance list, he said. He sat in the back of a crowded room for the speech and never got near the president.

"I thought maybe (Energy Secretary) Spencer Abraham had me barred from the White House," Goodman joked.

Still, Goodman is using this week's U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington as a stage to deliver a pointed message to fellow mayors: If the federal government decides to bury high-level nuclear waste in Nevada, waste will be shipped through their back yards.

Trucks and trains hauling the radioactive material through 43 states could have accidents in their city or make terrorist targets along their roads, Goodman is telling the mayors.

And city property values could plummet, he says.

"It gets into your constituents' pocketbooks, and when it gets into the pockets of your constituents, that affects your ability to provide them with services," Goodman told a gathering of about 50 -- roughly half were mayors -- at a hotel reception Goodman hosted Wednesday afternoon.

Goodman offered mayors waste transportation maps and other information, and a "Nevada is Not a Wasteland!" tote bag. The city's lobbying firm in Washington, Ball Janik, paid for the $2,300 cocktail reception.

Before the event, Goodman cornered Denver Mayor Wellington Webb before Webb sat down for another meeting in a cigar-smoke fog in a hotel bar.

The Denver City Council in 1996 passed a resolution opposing the Yucca plan. But federal law would override any local ordinance, Webb said. So Webb's city can't do much for Goodman but offer empathy.

"I'm supportive of Mayor Goodman in his efforts," Webb said later. "I know the Yucca Mountain issue has been around a long time. I think the federal policy should be to transport the waste around heavily urban areas."

A few other mayors said they were not familiar with any details of the Yucca plan, a proposal to ship high-level waste on trucks and trains from 103 commercial nuclear reactors nationwide to the desert site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The waste is now stored on-site at the reactors.

"The question I have is what should we do with the waste?" said Madison, Wis., Mayor Susan Bauman, who confessed to knowing little about Yucca Mountain. "I know shipping it across the country is probably not the best idea in the world. But we haven't found an answer."

Although a few city leaders and local activists in St. Louis have banded together to oppopse high-level waste shipments in the city, Mayor Francis Slay said he wasn't certain what stance the city had taken on future high-level waste shipments.

"But it is a grave concern to us," Slay said.

Cerritos, Calif., Mayor Paul Bowlen said he had not thought about the Yucca plan. "It's certainly something we'll look into," Bowlen said. "We want to get both sides of the story. We got (Goodman's) side. He's made some seemingly valid points."

Goodman said some mayors are more familiar with the Yucca plan than others.

Mayors should pressure their members of Congress to oppose waste shipments, Goodman said. They should rally their residents against shipping waste through town, which could translate to a groundswell of national opposition to the Yucca plan, he said.

"It's a very difficult task that I'm up against, but I'm always undaunted," Goodman said. "They say, 'We want to listen. We want to learn.' "

Goodman and the other mayors head to New York City today; the mayors conference is split this week between Washington and New York in a show of support for the cities attacked by terrorists last year.com