Letter: Let’s get money, water, for storing nuclear waste

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 9:12 a.m.

There are those of us who believe that Yucca Mountain is the right place for a repository.

There are those of us who either have worked on the project or know the people who do and have toured the site and have seen the scientific studies being conducted there. We have talked to some of the country's best scientific minds and have had our questions and concerns addressed.

A repository at Yucca Mountain is inevitable. Let me play prognosticator for one moment. The governor will take all 60 days to veto the site. The House of Representatives will overwhelmingly vote in support of a repository at Yucca. The Senate is a little more complicated because our senior senator is the No. 2 man in that respected political hall, but even Sen. Reid has said he doesn't have the votes to stop it.

So now we are hiring parliamentary experts, filing lawsuits, hiring former presidential chief of staffs and all this political stuff to stop a scientific project. Only science will be able to stop Yucca Mountain.

My prediction is that we will get some benefits but not because of the leadership and vision shown by our own elected officials, because they are going to fall on their own swords fighting the valiant fight. But what does that get us as residents and the voting public?

Not much, but their political careers get extended. Congress will give us some benefits just like they are giving New Mexico for a repository that is open and accepting the nation's transuranic waste, but it will pale in comparison to what we should get, like payments Alaska residents receive for the pipeline.

We could negotiate for the transfer of federal lands to local government ownership, money for education, money for roads and infrastructure improvements, and money for a high-speed train and the monorail. We could also negotiate for a larger allocation from the Colorado River Commission, because the way I see it, water is Nevada's gold.

REBECCA WAMSLEY