Editorial: Foretell the future by learning history

Monday, March 4, 2002 | 9:01 a.m.

There's an old saying that's brought to mind as Nevada stands firm against the federal plan to bury high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." The saying is worth remembering every time a new study comes out adding more evidence that fallout from above-ground nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site caused cancer deaths throughout the country. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded upon a study it released five years ago. That study suggested that people from Idaho to New York living under certain wind patterns were more susceptible to thyroid cancer because of fallout from nuclear testing that had taken place from 1951 to 1963. The expanded study suggests that practically everybody in the United States who has lived here since 1951 has absorbed some level of radiatio n from the fallout. The preliminary study even cautiously suggests that 15,000 cancer deaths nationwide can be attributed t! o the fallout.

And what was the Atomic Energy Commission saying about fallout in those days? It was saying, "Don't worry about it." That answer is the equivalent of what the Department of Energy is saying today about Yucca Mountain when Nevada raises questions about the health risks associated with burial of nuclear waste and the security risks associated with transportation.

Here's another saying worth remembering: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."