Bands join anti-Yucca effort

Friday, July 5, 2002 | 9:19 a.m.

Popular bands Indigo Girls, Midnight Oil and B-52s joined environmental and public interest groups Wednesday urging Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., to vote against a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

The groups held a media conference at the Allegro Hotel in Chicago as the Senate prepared to vote on the nuclear waste repository next week.

Fitzgerald has already indicated he supports the repository, while Durbin remains undecided.

"Mass transport of large amounts of highly dangerous radioactive waste through Illinois is a very dump idea, dangerous for people and their environment," Peter Garrett, lead singer of Midnight Oil and environmental activist.

The Energy Department estimates that 38,549 truck shipments or 7,027 train loads of nuclear waste would travel through Illnois to Yucca Mountain. Some shipments could also float by barge on Lake Michigan.

"Deadly nuclear waste shipments do not belong on the Great Lakes or the roadways that carry our children to school," Kate Pierson, B-52s singer, said. "If either Senator Durbin or Fitzgerald votes in support of this nuclear dump, he will do so with a guilty conscience."

The watchdog group Public Citizen said Fitzgerald received $52,038 from the nuclear industry over the past three election cycles through Feb. 28; Durbin received $25,000 for the same period.