Letter: ‘Home cooking’ served up on waste transport

Wednesday, June 5, 2002 | 9:22 a.m.

Sun reporter Ben Grove's fine June 3 article, "Reid wants probe of Abraham Yucca aide," is worthy of revisiting.

Over the next decade, government contracts dealing with nuclear waste projects will be in the neighborhood of about $300 billion. Of this, the number of contractors now set up to receive this work can be counted on one hand. Of those includes Undersecretary Card's alumnus CH2M Hill and Kaiser-Hill.

In a rush to judge Yucca Mountain suitable as a site for long-term storage, the 1982 Nuclear Waste Act is always quoted. The fact, however, is that said law also and equally mandated in Section 222 that while study is under way, alternatives to geologic storage would be pursued -- which has not been the case. Is this, too, by design so that small handful of contractors be set up to benefit from their tunnel vision approach to push Yucca Mountain for specific special interests?

A small handful of contractors will be beginning to vitrify, encapsulate and transport this nuclear waste at costs to be made in the billions that include among the few, CH2M Hill and K-Hill. Of course they want Yucca Mountain to go forward.

Sen. Harry Reid is correct in his suspicion of "home cooking" being served up by our department officials and their rush to pick and choose just what part of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Act and its 1987 amendment that bests suits their own self-interests, while purposely disregarding sections of that very mandate that was intended to meet the needs of our society in the long term -- that being Section 222.

WILLIAM SIMMONS

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