Letter: Focus on how nuke dump can help Nevadans

Monday, Jan. 28, 2002 | 8:40 a.m.

A repository at Yucca Mountain is inevitable, like it or not. Our elected officials are now talking about ways to reprocess the waste and scientific things, like transmutation, but all those things don't eliminate the need for a repository. It's just an attempt to make our politicians look good.

Let's let science decide the issue. I urge everyone to take a tour of the site and get your questions answered by the scientists working on the project. I urge our legal eagle mayor to stop the name calling. Calling the secretary of energy a jerk and piece of garbage doesn't do any good and is just another example of how he sometimes speaks before he thinks about what he is saying. In fact, the name calling does no good in our state's fight against the project -- it only damages our already weak credibility back in the Beltway.

I just wonder who is playing the devil's advocate and looking at ways to make this project benefit all of us -- Yucca Mountain could be used to diversify our economy. It was reported our schools will be short $15 million, so let's let the federal government pay for our schools and roads and even look at things like transferring federal lands to state ownership. I've even heard about how we could be an exporter of energy with power plants at the Test Site. All these things can be negotiated, but some dialogue needs to start soon.

That's how I see it, and once the smoke and mirrors clear I think that is the way our elected officials will see it. It's just a question of whether it will be too late.

REBECCA WAMSLEY