Letter: Never give inch on Yucca dump

Monday, June 24, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

The Las Vegas Sun has been about the only one willing to "get it on," like Mills Lane would say. Who else would have the fortitude of conviction to print myriad candid editorials, which chastise governors, senators and presidents, and letters to the editor that practically call out that the Energy Department's high-ranking officials support only special interests.

Up until the trucks laden with the most deadly material ever known to man actually pull through Beatty and Tonopah going to Yucca Mountain, and bringing hell's fire with 'em, we all must never give an inch! There must never be any compromise and no talk now of accepting their money tokens for training and responsive measures. For that only shows us to be weak in their eyes.

Make no mistake -- money for smokescreen programs like those is just pocket change to them. And the freedom that comes for all Americans in maintaining state sovereignty can never be bartered in such nickel and dimes, especially when there already is a better way to deal with nuclear waste than the 1957 technology of Yucca Mountain. Why even store it for 10,000 years if it can be permanently made benign cheaper?

WILLIAM SIMMONS Salt Lake City