Editorial: Nuke dump study omits real world

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 | 9:07 a.m.

A study paid for by the Energy Department, and produced by economists at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, claims that the state's economy would suffer if work at the Yucca Mountain project were stopped. UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research claims that the 3,650 jobs at the project, most of them high-paying, translate into about $131 million in annual disposable income. Furthermore, the researchers say if the project goes forward, the building of the dump and the construction of a rail line in Southern Nevada would yield an additional 2,000-2,500 jobs during the transportation and operations phase of the dump from 2010 to 2035.

Would more Energy Department jobs be created if the Yucca Mountain project gets the final go-ahead? Certainly. But this simplistic analysis, for which the Energy Department paid $100,000, doesn't adequately take into account what happens when -- not if -- a deadly accident occurs in the transportation and the burial of high-level nuclear waste. These relatively few Yucca Mountain jobs (more than 830,000 people are employed in Clark County) could ultimately put Southern Nevada's economy entirely at risk.

If nuclear waste spills out during a transportation accident in Southern Nevada, who would believe that property values would stay the same? In addition, tourists would be wary of coming to Las Vegas. What business would want to expand or relocate here? Some, maybe many, Nevadans would decide to pick up and leave our state altogether.

The authors of the study -- Mary Riddel, Martin Boyett and R. Keith Schwer -- do acknowledge that there could be short-term economic fallout in the first year waste is shipped, but they add that it could become insignificant shortly thereafter as people grow more tolerant of the shipments. With respect to those who live near the shipping routes, the researchers write that "convincing the public to allow ongoing transport of high-level nuclear waste may be challenging." Talk about an understatement. The authors add that there is a way "for mitigating the social costs and reducing local resistance to nuclear-waste transport: reducing the risk that people perceive from transport." Such an "education" program -- what we would call a public relations campaign -- "can moderate public risk perception if the targeted audience finds the DOE information to be well r esearched and effectively presented," they write. "If credibility is compromised, then the DOE information could act to inc! rease the public's perception of risk, undermining the effectiveness of public risk-education programs."

The Energy Department's reputation, however, already has been ruined -- it routinely rejects information that shows how dangerous it is to bury nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department also hasn't adequately considered the dangers associated with shipping nuclear waste, especially from terrorists. Instead of honestly addressing all of the project's faults, the Energy Department prefers to ignore them, trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

If a high-level nuclear waste dump is brimming with economic benefits, as the authors of the study claim, then why has every other state in the nation not volunteered its land as a permanent burial site? Indeed, the other 49 states' representatives and senators in Congress couldn't target Nevada fast enough to be the nation's sole nuclear waste dump. We're sure that Energy Department officials are pleased with the results of the UNLV study they paid for, but Nevadans understand that this study is divorced from reality and is a product that truly is befitting the term "ivory tower." There is no amount of new jobs that we could ever define as a "benefit" if it results in dangerously transporting 77,000 tons of man's deadliest waste cross-country and burying that nuclear garbage in Southern Nevada.