Columnist Erin Neff: Nothing like a mushroom cloud to make us proud

Erin Neff

Friday, May 10, 2002 | 4:26 a.m.

IF PAST is prologue to the current Yucca Mountain issue, a new license plate honoring the Nevada Test Site shapes up as a foreboding symbol.

There's nothing wrong with honoring a key part of Nevada's past. The problem is that the featured bright mushroom cloud may not just be an historic emblem, but a portent of gloom for the future.

The image may also be harmful to the ongoing battle in Washington.

The design of a new plate approved by the Legislature to commemorate the Test Site for its 40 years of nuclear bomb testing features a gigantic mushroom cloud front and center with smaller symbols of the nuclear age in the corner.

That cloud, which caught the attention of Congress this week during the Yucca Mountain debate, has blown away the state's public image faster than the atomic clouds blew across the desert decades ago.

Proponents of Yucca Mountain, especially Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., said the plate proves Nevada is "proud of its nuclear heritage." In other words, we're happy to take one again for the government.

So much for trying to win public opinion in Utah, Vermont and elsewhere. The plate speaks for us.

Rick Bibbero, the Minden resident who got $500 for designing the license plate, isn't apologizing for the mushroom cloud. Like it or not, it is history no other state can claim.

"Nevada being Nevada," he said, "this is a unique subject."

This is unique: Congress had to pass special laws to govern the procedure to choose a nuclear waste site; the governor had the right to veto a presidential decision; science is talking about storing something for a period longer than recorded human history.

So you'd think, in the state's fight for its life to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada, the Legislature would do something unique to raise money and rally support. Maybe a license plate to help fund the fight.

Instead, the state's 63 leaders were busy approving these plate gems: one supporting preservation of federal lands surrounding Las Vegas, another honoring antique trucks and yet another funding the preservation of the Lower Truckee River and Pyramid Lake.

Those ideas are so, uh, popular that the proponents haven't gotten the necessary 250 advance orders to design the plates. The plate commemorating nuclear testing did.

"I don't like the plate, and I wish I could stop it," Gov. Kenny Guinn said. "But they followed the law, and you just can't change it."

When the plate's design was unveiled recently, Yucca opponents decried it as "abominable."

But motorists are lining up to be a part of it. Already more than 300 have signed up to pay $61 for the plate -- $25 of which will go to the Nevada Atomic Testing History Institute.

Too bad there's no "Stop Yucca" plate. If there were, every anti-dump politician and environmentalist would buy one and the Nevada Protection Fund might have enough money to get through the summer.

Instead, though, the Legislature was busy approving nine special plates ranging from animal appreciation, rodeo awareness and celebrating Las Vegas' upcoming 100th birthday.

The atomic testing plate died and was revived when it was tacked on as an amendment to another bill. It was approved with no proposed design -- leaving Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, to muse at the time: "Is it a hole in the ground, a mushroom cloud, a Geiger counter?"

Beers argues today that since nuclear testing is an "undeniable part" of Nevada's history, he isn't troubled that the plate uses a mushroom cloud.

There's also no denying Nevada's future nuclear role in the federal government's grand scheme -- this time to bail out utility companies by freeing up space at their nuclear plants to generate more power and waste, with no recycling, no reprocessing, no endgame in sight.

Even before the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to support the dump, many Nevadans were resigned to the fact that Yucca is coming. So it's going to be as big a part of life as anything else we put on our license plates.

In Nevada you can get license plates designating that you're a firefighter or, shudder, a member of the working press. And there are a host of fund-raisers, from Lake Tahoe to children's art issues -- all good causes, but not the state's ultimate cause.

You can also buy a circa 1982 replica plate -- the plain navy blue tags given prior to 1983 that serve as a status symbol for longtime Nevadans. Now if there was only some cachet to fighting Yucca Mountain.

Since Guinn thinks the Yucca battle is still years from over, there's still time for the 2003 Legislature to create an anti-Yucca plate.

For now, though, we can resort to personalized plates to send a message to congressional members in nuke-rich states.

KABOOM is already taken, but YUCCA MT is still available.