Editorial: Fatal flaws not halting Yucca push

Friday, Oct. 24, 2003 | 5:42 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION Oct. 24 - 25, 2003

The on-site areas that the nation's nuclear power plants use for storing their radioactive waste should be looking pretty good right now, even to people who have aggressively supported Yucca Mountain.

Adding to the already voluminous evidence that Yucca Mountain is unsuitable as a burial site was a letter circulated in Washington, D.C., last week by nuclear-waste specialists. In it, the specialists, who are members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, cited research showing that current burial plans will pose severe safety risks. This is because the casks in which the waste is to be sealed would inevitably corrode, according to laboratory experiments that replicated conditions inside the mountain. Corrosion could lead to contamination of the aquifer 1,000 feet underneath Yucca Mountain that sustains the Amargosa Valley, an agricultural region. It also could lead to the contamination of the air around Yucca Mountain, as no study has yet shown that the mountain alone could protect the outside environment from the waste's radiation.

In contrast, the on-site nuclear waste storage areas have been safe for decades and could remain safe for decades longer until such time as a safer alternative is found. But the Energy Department refuses to acknowledge that Yucca Mountain poses a problem for Nevada, the West and the whole country. It remains hell-bent on opening Yucca Mountain somewhere between 2010 and 2015. The CBS show "60 Minutes" will do a segment on this issue tonight at 7.

Nevada, of course, is fighting the opening with full support from most Las Vegas Valley residents. Our valley's 1.5 million residents live a scant 90 miles southwest of the mountain that sits on the western edge of the Energy Department's Nevada Test Site. Our proximity makes us acutely aware of Yucca Mountain's dangers. We hope as the state's fight progresses against this future threat to human safety that the rest of the country learns what we have learned and joins in the fight.

Here are just a few facts to consider:

There are seven now-dormant volcanoes within 27 miles. What will happen if one of the volcanoes becomes active after tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste are buried there?

The skies over Yucca Mountain are used by pilots out of Nellis Air Force Base for training -- more than 20,000 missions using live ordnance are flown a year. God forbid, but a plane could crash into the tons of waste that will necessarily and forever be piled up outside the mountain, awaiting entombment.

And why build such a site so close to Las Vegas, the fastest-growing city in the country?

We cannot understand how the government, knowing these risks, can continue its steadfast push to open Yucca Mountain. The government should admit that burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would be a disaster and bring the project to an immediate halt.