Editorial: Nuke dump silence

Saturday, June 19, 2004 | 12:29 p.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 19 - 20, 2004

President Bush visited Reno on Friday and talked a lot about what he sees as a national economy on the rebound, but he said nary a word about his plans to send nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Of course, Bush fears talking about the Yucca Mountain project, which is reviled in this state. Compounding matters for Bush is that his advocacy of such an unsafe location as Yucca Mountain directly contravenes his pledge to Nevadans during the 2000 campaign that he would use "sound science" in judging the site's suitability to contain 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.

If Bush doesn't believe Nevadans' argument that the Yucca Mountain project has huge problems, you'd think he would at least listen to the concerns expressed by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, whose members are appointed by the president. Less than two weeks ago this group of independent scientists warned Congress in a report that the Energy Department is pushing ahead with a dump despite the board's concerns that its current design is vulnerable to corrosion, which could allow radioactive waste to escape into the environment. But we're not holding our breath that Bush, whose lack of intellectual curiosity has been well established, will even bother to be briefed about this report.

It's obvious to us that if George Bush gets re-elected, his plans to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada will accelerate no matter how much information continues to come out about how unsafe it would be to do so.

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