Yucca fight to target nation’s counties

Monday, March 4, 2002 | 10:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Clark County should bombard leaders of other counties nationwide with its anti-Yucca Mountain message, Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera said today.

Herrera this week intends to outline a plan to launch an information campaign aimed at other county managers. Herrera specifically wants to target officials in counties along the transportation routes that likely would be used to haul nuclear waste to Nevada if the Yucca plan is approved.

Herrera spent several days last week talking to some of the nation's county leaders at a National Association of Counties conference here. He told them the federal plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain puts their counties at risk because shipping waste poses accident and terrorism risks.

At Herrera's urging two of the association's committees adopted a resolution that urged the Energy Department to work more closely with local governments in emergency planning.

"The DOE has not even begun to address the terrorism risk," Herrera said.

County leaders, like many city and state leaders nationwide, know little about how the Yucca Mountain project could affect their areas, said Bob Andrews, Clark County's director of emergency management, who accompanied Herrera to the nation's capital.

"My sense is that a lot of them were hearing about this for the first time and thinking about it for the first time, and were alarmed," Andrews said. "We've got a public education process ahead of us."

Herrera is treading in familiar steps. Gov. Kenny Guinn has lobbied fellow governors against Yucca, including at a National Governors Association meeting last week. Mayor Oscar Goodman is also trying to build nationwide support against the waste project by targeting mayors in cities on or near likely waste transportation routes.

Now that President Bush has endorsed the Yucca project, Nevada officials hope state and local politicians nationwide will take concerns about waste shipping to their lawmakers in Congress.

Congress likely will vote on the project later this year. If lawmakers approve it, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would take several years to determine if the site is safe to license as a waste dump.