Letter: Yucca would be looming disaster

Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 8:55 a.m.

Las Vegas' air quality has been affected by smoke billowing from multiple wildfires in California. I found it truly amazing -- and distressing -- to see the normally clear, blue sky of our valley so suddenly and quickly obliterated by smoke emanating some 200 miles to the west. It seems that despite mankind's best efforts, Mother Nature will always have the last word when it comes to the wide-ranging effects of disasters, both natural and man-made.

Which brings me to the Bush administration's eyes-wide-closed plans to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. This is a disaster waiting to happen, a disaster whose scale would make the current wildfires in California look like a walk in the park by comparison.

No one will ever, ever be able to guarantee the 100 percent safety of the Yucca Mountain site as a repository for nuclear waste, any more than encyclopedic building codes, well-trained and equipped emergency forces and uncommon environmental awareness were any guarantee against the ravages of the current disaster in California. The only thing that we can be sure of is that when a disaster occurs at Yucca (and it will), our feeble attempts at containment will be no match for the non-discriminating power and unpredictability of nature's own elemental onslaught.

Heaven help us when that day comes!

MARK STENROOS