Editorial: Double-talk on Yucca

Monday, July 19, 2004 | 9:18 a.m.

For years this newspaper has advocated that nuclear power plants continue to store their highly radioactive waste on site, where it's safe, as an alternative to the dangerous plan of transporting it across the country to Yucca Mountain. The argument from the industry and federal government has been that on-site storage is not safe and that it is vulnerable to terrorism.

We thought of that argument when reading a New York Times article last week about plans by a nuclear power plant near Peekskill, N.Y., to increase its on-site storage capacity. Local residents, fearing for their safety, turned out in force to protest the expanded storage plan. Who was there to defend on-site storage? Why, the federal government and industry officials.

The plan was to transfer spent fuel rods from storage pools, where they have been cooling for years, into steel cylinders that would be stored in silos made of concrete and steel -- a process known as dry cask storage. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission was on hand to "placate" the residents' fears, the newspaper reported. And an industry spokesman was quoted as saying, "The casks, we believe, will withstand a commercial airline crashing into them."

So we once again ask: Why is Yucca Mountain such an urgent national priority?