Private fund started to battle Yucca dump

Jeff German and Cy Ryan

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2002 | 8:51 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn today planned to officially begin a private fund-raising drive for the Nevada Protection Fund in the fight against the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

This comes as a legislative committee on nuclear waste, for the first time in 16 years, came out against the Yucca Mountain site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Guinn said he planned to accept a $50,000 check from Station Casinos Inc. for the protection fund prior to this morning's meeting of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Commission in Las Vegas.

The commission, the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog, is overseeing a grass-roots and advertising campaign to solicit anti-dump allies around the country.

Guinn, who already has raised $5.2 million for the fund from public sources, said he's looking for another $300,000 from the private sector. Money from the fund also is being used in the state's legal battle over Yucca Mountain.

The governor said he's looking to the gaming industry and the business community to step up to the plate in the latest fund-raising drive.

Meanwhile, the Legislature's Committee on High-level Radioactive Waste, by a 7-1 vote Tuesday, endorsed Guinn's move to veto President Bush's expected decision to proceed with the Yucca project.

The full Legislature has repeatedly voiced its collective opposition to a repository in Nevada, but the radioactive waste panel, created in 1985, has done little but listen to reports and studies related to the project.

"Nevada should not be the national septic system, and I've been waiting six years to take a stance," said Assemblyman John Lee, D-Las Vegas, a committee member the past six years.

Sen. Lawrence Jacobsen, R-Minden, who has voted against similar resolutions during the most recent session of the full Legislature, was the lone dissenter.

The committee also tabled until its next meeting a suggestion by Assemblywoman Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, to send to other state Legislatures letters urging them to pass resolutions opposing the transportation of nuclear waste through their states.

Mortensen told Tiffany that states with nuclear reactors would oppose such a resolution. Assemblyman Bob Price, D-North Las Vegas, said only eight of the lower 48 states do not have nuclear reactors.