State joins Yucca action

Friday, Jan. 25, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

The state has joined the city of Las Vegas and Clark County in the federal appeals court case against the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

According to the petition for review filed in the court in Washington, D.C., the proposed dump will cause "immediate and irreparable harm" to Southern Nevada.

Egan & Associates, the law firm hired by Gov. Kenny Guinn to help fight the Yucca project, joined the petition Thursday afternoon, hours after Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman filed the original petition on behalf of the city and county.

The Department of Energy did not oppose the state's legal action.

Guinn also sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to say he was "disappointed" in the secretary's Jan. 10 notice that he would recommend Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste repository.

Guinn noted in a three-page letter to Abraham that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, licensing agency for any repository, has yet to solve 293 technical issues related to the proposed repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.