Rural officials say negotiate on Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Friday, March 7, 2003 | 10:07 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Officials in rural Nevada counties are increasingly eager for the state to drop its costly lawsuits against Yucca Mountain and to negotiate for benefits, representatives from Nye, Lincoln and Esmeralda counties said today.

Rural Nevada residents are mobilizing in an effort that soon could put them in a heated battle against Gov. Kenny Guinn, Nevada's lawmakers in Congress and Clark County leaders, they said.

"I don't think fighting is the answer here," Nye County Commissioner Henry Neth said today. "But all these federal impositions are in Nye County. All we're asking for is our fair share of the pie."

Neth and six other rural Nevada officials were in Washington this week for a conference of the Washington-based Energy Communities Alliance, a national group of local governments with U.S. Department of Energy facilities. They spoke to reporters here in an informal interview arranged by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-Yucca industry trade group. NEI is not otherwise organizing or funding the Nevada localities, spokesman Mitch Singer said.

The conference this week proves that small towns and counties all over the country have seen dramatic economic benefits from Energy Department projects, the Nevadans said. As the state faces a budget crisis, it's time Nevada started negotiating for money for roads, schools and water projects in exchange for Yucca, they said.

"The response a lot of the time is, 'We don't want to pimp the state (for benefits),' " Esmeralda County Commissioner Benjamin Viljoen said. "That's just not it at all."

Nevadans are blinded by the state's single-minded battle against the repository project and "in the dark" about all the money the state is eligible for with a project as massive as Yucca, said Kevin Phillips, mayor of Caliente, a likely transfer point for rail waste shipments to Yucca.

"I'd give an arm and a leg for some of that economic development in our state," Phillips said. "There are some real opportunities out there."

After a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort last year to kill Yucca in Congress, Guinn is leading a legal effort in federal court to halt the project. The state has a good chance of winning at least one of its four lawsuits, Guinn has said. Congressional lawmakers have said the fight is far from over. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said Yucca is not likely to be constructed for a number of legal, logistic and scientific factors.

Nevada governors and congressional lawmakers have long waged war against Yucca, but after Congress and President Bush formally endorsed the site, it became time for the state to cut its losses, Neth said.

It's difficult to gauge just how many Nevada residents agree. Polls vary. But Neth suspects it's an overwhelming majority. Neth said that he thinks that even in Clark County, only the politicians are not yet willing to drop the fight.