Editorial: Yucca fight can be won

Friday, May 7, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

At a public meeting Wednesday in rural Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, maps on display showed a proposed 319-mile rail line running between the city and Yucca Mountain. The approximately 100 people attending seemed to agree: The federal plan to permanently bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste under the mountain will prevail.

The sentiment that carried the night in Caliente, of course, is not consistent with how most Nevadans feel about Yucca Mountain. Overwhelmingly, Nevadans understand the danger a nuclear waste dump represents and support the state's fight against it. Many people in the Caliente area, including the city's mayor, however, are more focused on new local jobs than on any danger associated with radioactive contamination. The new rail line, serviced by a new depot, would receive spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from around the country and carry the deadly cargo the rest of the way to Yucca Mountain. This would mean workers.

We would hope that as the proposal to build a new rail line at Caliente moves forward -- more public hearings will be held and an environmental impact statement must be completed -- the sense of inevitability expressed Wednesday in Caliente will be drowned out. Yucca Mountain is far from being a done deal.

The state government, financially assisted by many counties, cities, businesses and individual residents, is waging a legal battle against Yucca Mountain that has an excellent chance of being won. There are too many valid safety and technical points in the state's case to believe that Yucca Mountain is inevitable.

The latest shocker is from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency which will decide whether to give the Energy Department a license to operate Yucca Mountain. The commission is saying it doesn't believe that the casks carrying the deadly waste during transportation to Yucca need to be tested to determine their breaking point. Nevada has all along supported full cask testing, for the safety of people along the transportation routes. We hope people in the Caliente area who say Yucca Mountain is inevitable think long and hard about what could be rolling past their houses if the rail line is built.