Editorial: When good friends are hard to find

Friday, May 17, 2002 | 9:40 a.m.

The governor says the Bush administration views the state as a dumping ground. There is talk of deploying highway troopers to block any radioactive shipments. There is a ring of familiarity, but the governor isn't Kenny Guinn and the state isn't Nevada. The scene is being played out in South Carolina.

The plight facing the two states is similar, but South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges' objection to having plutonium stored temporarily in South Carolina is laced with hypocrisy. Hodges, the same man who fears the federal government will renege on its deal to eventually move the waste out of his state to Nevada, has endorsed Yucca Mountain as the nation's permanent nuclear waste dump. And there is a huge difference between permanently burying 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada versus temporarily storing 34 tons of plutonium in South Carolina.

Hodges would be taken more seriously if he supported other states unfairly targeted as dumping grounds by the federal government. For instance, Nevada has lent its support to Utah, which has battled plans to build a temporary nuclear waste dump there. But even in Utah, with the exception of Rep. Jim Matheson, the state hasn't backed Nevada's fight against the Yucca Mountain project.

Nevada is finding out that some likely allies -- states dumped on literally and figuratively -- only care about their own hides. But other states one day might kick themselves for not standing with Nevada on principle, especially if the federal government gets away with sending nuclear waste to Nevada despite the well-known dangers of shipping nuclear waste and burying it in a seismically active earthquake zone. Those states ultimately could be on the federal government's chopping block -- and in need of friends -- when Yucca Mountain runs out of room to hold all of the waste generated by nuclear power plants.