Rural officials seek deal, not a fight on Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Friday, March 7, 2003 | 11:33 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 officials 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."

But Guinn and Nevada's lawmakers in Congress have no intention of giving up a complex legal battle pending in federal court against the Energy Department's plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca.

The effort is at its most promising now because President Bush and Congress last year formally backed a legally and scientifically flawed project, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency and Guinn's pointman on Yucca issues.

"To back out now would be to tell the DOE that it's OK to break the law and put Nevada citizens in harm's way for some short-term economic gain," Loux said.

Neth and six other rural Nevada officials were in the nation's capital this week for a conference of the Washington-based Energy Communities Alliance, a national group of cities and counties 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 nationwide have seen dramatic economic benefits from Energy Department projects, the Nevadans said. As the state faces a budget crisis, it's time Nevada negotiated for federal 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 "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 the legal effort to halt the project.

The state has a good chance of winning at least one of its four lawsuits, Guinn has said, and congressional lawmakers have said the fight is far from over.

"I'm not willing to negotiate away the safety of Nevada residents," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today. Negotiating for Yucca is not the way out of desperate economic slumps, Reid said.

"They're (rural officials) entitled to their opinion, but everyone kind of expects them -- they come back here every year and I don't think it's that big a deal," Reid said.

Nevada governors and congressional lawmakers have long waged war against Yucca, but when Congress formally endorsed the site, it clearly 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.

Reid said the state's residents are still solidly behind the legal fight.

The fight involves a long-term commitment, Loux said. A "handful" of rural officials, prodded by the nuclear industry, have always hoped to cash in on Yucca, even though the federal money likely would not be enough to dig the state out of budget deficits, Loux said. Industry officials quietly back their effort, Loux said.

"The industry doesn't want to see what the outcome of these lawsuits is going to be," Loux said. "It's a smokescreen to make sure the dump happens."

Eventually, the rural locals may try to negotiate without the state, which also would be a complicated legal issue.

"I believe that when reality sets in and responsibility takes over, people will realize it's time to negotiate for benefits rather than have this shoved down our throats," Neth said.