Letter: No nuke waste at Yucca; no tower at Summerlin

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 | 9:09 a.m.

Your Sunday editorial opposing the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste was both well considered and articulate. I can't imagine a more dangerous environmental disaster than housing nuclear waste in a seismically active mountain above an ancient aquifer. Never mind the problems in getting the waste to the site; once it arrives the environmental ramifications are far beyond conventional government "science."

It is the lack of vision that is most disturbing to me. First, we engage a form of energy (nuclear) without fully thinking through how to handle its waste. Then we allow our Washington "leaders" to force upon us a solution so riddled with danger that it is no solution at all.

And since the editorial staff at the Sun has been able to see a bad idea when it presents itself, perhaps its concern for the environment could extend itself to opposing the building of a 300-foot eyesore in the vicinity of Red Rock Canyon, one of Las Vegas' most visually attractive environmental preserves.

I am no environmentalist but I do possess a little common sense and community courtesy. Summerlin has as much use for a 300-foot casino tower as Yucca Mountain has for nuclear waste. Bad ideas abound when we elect people without long-term vision. Perhaps we can change that come our next elections.

LANCE T. WEIL

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