Editorial: Is anybody listening?

Friday, July 16, 2004 | 8:53 a.m.

Last week Nevadans were more optimistic about their chances of stopping the Yucca Mountain project after the state had secured an important legal victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency hadn't followed the law, which laid out a scientific framework to set safety standards for a proposed dump at Yucca Mountain so that radiation couldn't be released and harm the public. The federal government is back to square one in setting these standards, which, if they are rewritten based on real science and not on political considerations, should spell the project's demise because it's impossible to guarantee that radiation won't be released for several hundred thousand years.

We are, however, troubled that soon after the federal court ruling, officials from the Energy Department (tasked with building the dump) met secretly with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (which will decide whether to give the Energy Department a license to open the dump). Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects, has informed the NRC and the EPA that it shouldn't leave Nevada out of these discussions in the future. Further, Loux added, the meetings should be public to "avoid suggestions that new rules specifying radiation standards have been trimmed to fit the needs of the Energy Department."

It's outrageous these federal regulators would leave Nevada officials out of these talks, as if being the potential home for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste wouldn't warrant an invitation. But Nevada, at nearly every turn in the Yucca Mountain project, has been treated with contempt by federal agencies that ostensibly are supposed to protect the public and are not supposed to be shills for the nuclear power industry. Apparently not even a federal court decision in Nevada's favor hasn't yet provided these agencies with the immediate -- and necessary -- jolt that tells them it's no longer business as usual.