Resident turns Yucca fight into civil rights suit

Jace Radke and Christina Littlefield

Monday, July 1, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

A Clark County resident has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the Energy Department has purposely designed nuclear waste shipment routes through minority neighborhoods.

The civil rights suit, filed Friday by Jonathan Galaviz, 25, calls for an immediate injunction to keep the Energy Department from storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, the proposed dump site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The suit states that the routes described in the Energy Department's economic impact study were set to take the dangerous materials through heavily populated minority areas.

"High-level nuclear waster shipment routes have been intentionally selected to travel through predominately minority communities ... in order to reduce majority opposition to this flawed $100 billion project," said Galaviz, who is Hispanic and running for Clark County assessor.

Of the 150 million Americans who will be impacted by the transportation of nuclear waste, Galaviz said that 60 to 65 percent are minorities, who represent 25 percent of the population.

"That is a disproportionate figure," Galaviz said. He added that railroad tracks -- a major mode of transportation for the nuclear waste -- typically run through minority neighborhoods.

"High-level nuclear waste shipments will not be transported through Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., or in the posh areas of Georgetown in Washington, D.C., but there will be thousands shipped by truck and rail through predominantly minority and low-income communities for the next 40 years," Galaviz said.

Galaviz' suit also alleges that Congress violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment when it altered the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1987 to single out Yucca Mountain as the only site to be studied.

"The other sites were off the list without any scientific evaluation whatsoever," Galaviz said. "Nevadans are not getting the same protection under the law as other states."

Along with the Energy Department, the suit names Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and President Bush as defendants because, Galaviz said, they used "the fraudulent and misinformed environmental impact statement on Yucca Mountain" to recommend the site to Congress.

Galaviz claims in the suit that the DOE failed to conduct an analysis to determine whether proposed waste routes would have an adverse effect on blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and American Indians. He also states that Clark County is a "predominantly minority community."

The 2000 Census shows that 72 percent of Clark County's population is classified as white, and that can include some of those of Hispanic/Latino origin. According to the Census, 60 percent of the county population is white and not of Hispanic or Latino origin. Overall, the 2000 Census said 22 percent of Clark County's population had Hispanic or Latino origins.

Galaviz, a Republican who works in technology business strategy for Mandalay Resort Group, said he didn't file the lawsuit because of politics or as an environmental crusade.

He is currently representing himself in the civil suit but said he is talking with environmental and civil rights groups that may join the case as plaintiffs or take on the case as primary counsel.