Editorial: Don’t take risks with nuke waste

Monday, Aug. 11, 2003 | 8:50 a.m.

Rep. Shelley Berkley has introduced legislation that would require the federal government to undertake a thorough analysis of the threats posed by terrorism to the transportation of nuclear waste and its planned storage in Nevada. The Nevada Democrat also wants an anti-terrorism plan to be in place before the Energy Department could seek a license to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain.

A spokesman for the nuclear power industry dismisses the need for Berkley's legislation. As the Sun reported Friday, the Nuclear Energy Institute's Mitch Singer noted that Yucca Mountain is next to Nellis Air Force Base and the entrance to the dumpsite is beyond the Nevada Test Site's secured gates. "It's not exactly the kind of target that offers any type of success," Singer said. But it's precisely this kind of head-in-the-sand logic that could result in another devastating terrorist attack along the lines that happened 9-11. For that matter, the nuclear power industry is hardly the place the government should turn to for advice about anti-terrorism preparedness. Don't forget that in mock terrorism attacks against nuclear power plants -- conducted prior to 9-11 -- more than half of the time security guards at the plants failed to stop them.

Last year, despite evidence that the Energy Department's plan to get rid of nuclear waste presented a wide range of dangers to public safety, Congress and the White House irresponsibly put the Yucca Mountain project on a fast track. But President Bush and Congress shouldn't continue to dodge the threat to national security that would be created by the Yucca Mountain project -- and passage of Berkley's legislation would be a step in the right direction.