Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Straight talk on dump

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2002 | 8:56 a.m.

I DON'T NORMALLY agree with the publisher of the other newspaper. It is bad form.

So, in keeping with this long-standing tradition, I will respectfully disagree with Sherman Frederick's treatise on Yucca Mountain that he wrote this past Sunday in which he decries the idea of Nevadans using the "Chicken Little" approach to the nuclear waste issue.

Sherm was eloquent in his description of any number of reasons why locating the high-level nuclear garbage dump in Nevada is a bad idea. Be it the transportation issue which involves a minimum of some 43 states to get that deadly stuff from where it is made to where we live; or the "retrievability" concept that suggests one day we can take that stuff out of the very expensive hole they are digging beneath Yucca Mountain -- an idea that is bought only by those so desperate for Nevada's acceptance that they will tell us anything to accomplish their goal; or the basic unfairness of a political process that would take a non-nuclear state and bury it under the radioactive garbage created in those states that have opted for cheaper power but that refuse to deal with the mess thay have made in their own back yards; his reasoning was sound and right on the mark.

Where I differ, though, is in his castigation of those "on the fringe of the Yucca debate" who claim that our water will be poisoned and our children could die.

His reasoning is simple: If we take a "Chicken Little" approach to the dump, how can we ever do business again in this state. He used an example of a home builder who would be caught in the middle of a moral dilemma if he thought "we're all gonna die" and still built and sold another home while harboring such thoughts. He added the Nevada Development Authority for good measure, suggesting that they couldn't in good conscience invite new businesses to town, feeling the way they do and all.

So, here's why I differ. I think we would do a supreme disservice to the community we serve as newspaper people and as citizens if we don't explain in the most dramatic of terms the potential for danger that siting the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain poses to the families who live and work in this state.

It is, in my opinion, not a question of 'if" there is an accident involving the transporation of a minimum of 77,000 tons of the deadliest poison known to man, only when. And when when comes, it is beyond any doubt that the unbreakable casks will break and the unleakable packages will leak. Anyone who thinks to the contrary is not a student of history and not up on the inevitability of Murphy's Law.

There is also no question that a seismic incident will occur in what is the third most active earthquake zone in the continental United States. Small quakes happen all the time. Is it that hard to believe that sometime in the 10,000 year half-life of the plutonium and other radioactive fuels that will be buried in Yucca Mountain, the "big one" will happen and the water table that runs so deep below the mountain will be reached by the canisters within seconds? How long after that will a major water source for the Southwestern United States be breached and forever poisoned?

I don't think it is unreasonable or even unwise to alert the people in this state or in these United States in the plainest language we can muster to assure us and them that we have done all in our power to avert this disaster waiting to happen to us.

And if, along the way, one of Sherm's advertisers loses a little business because the argument sinks in then that's just the cost of the business that the federal government and the nuclear power industry is doing to us. In fact, we would be derelict if we didn't speak and editorialize in the most emphatic terms possible our dislike, disdain and disgust at what our government is trying to do to us.

For those of you who didn't read the sequel to Chicken Little it went something like this: Finally the sky did fall and it fell on the little chicken.

If the difference between getting that dump and not getting it; between catching and holding the attention of the powerful gaming industry so it can work its will in Washington or leaving it to worry about relatively inconsequential matters like taxes and betting bans; between alerting potential allies in other states along the transportation routes so they can garner congressional support for our position or leaving them deaf, dumb and blind to problems in their own back yards so that we get the dump and they get the transportation nightmares; between a complacent Southern Nevada or an extremely active citizenry putting maximum pressure on our leadership to save us from this nightmare; if the difference is using language to press the point, then I say let the rhetoric begin and not let it stop until the nuke trucks and trains are halted where they stand a nd sanity reigns.

There is a reason no one in this country wants this poison in their back yards. And that reason is because it kills children, poisons drinking water and is utterly incompatable with life.

Nevadans are not chickens and not Chicken Littles. We should not be afraid to say what is on our minds.