Michigan senator goes anti-Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, July 2, 2002 | 10:37 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada senators have picked up another ally in their fight against Yucca Mountain -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Stabenow in recent weeks had said she was likely to vote for the proposed nuclear waste repository. But she reconsidered as she closely examined waste transportation plans that could involve shipping waste by barge on Lake Michigan, spokesman David Lemmon said.

As many as 431 barge shipments of waste could be made on the lake as the waste begins a journey to Nevada, according to the Energy Department. Transportation routes have not been finalized.

Stabenow has led an effort to prohibit oil drilling in the lake and has made protecting it a signature issue, Lemmon said.

"I cannot support any plan that would include a transportation option that endangers one-fifth of the world's fresh water supply, and the source of safe drinking water for the entire Great Lakes region," Stabenow said in a statement.

Stabenow supported Yucca as a member of the House, but she said Sept. 11 terrorism concerns also forced her to reconsider shipping the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada. She wants more testing of the steel nuclear waste shipping containers, she said.

Michigan is home to four operating nuclear reactors where nuclear waste is stockpiled, and numerous state leaders have supported Yucca as the nation's permanent national waste dump. Stabenow defeated former Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., now Secretary of Energy, who this year recommended the Yucca site to President Bush.

Stabenow left the ranks of Democrats who had been undecided on Yucca, joining Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., who announced Friday she would oppose the project. Carnahan is also worried about waste transportation. Much of the waste now temporarily stored at waste sites in the East would travel across Missouri's highways and railroads on its way to Nevada.

But with a Senate vote on Yucca expected next week, Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., are still struggling to corral 51 votes needed to kill the project.

Reid and Ensign are calling their colleagues this week in a final lobbying effort, as Congress takes a week-long recess.