Letter: Yucca plank admits defeat

Friday, May 14, 2004 | 8:52 a.m.

I wonder how many Nevada Republican legislators who voted for the Nevada protection fund voted for the defeatist "let's negotiate" plank at the state Republican convention?

Negotiation makes no sense. Our lawsuits have not even been adjudicated!

Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Brian Sandoval still insist their position is against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. There is going to be suspicion about this defeatism plank because both of them are on the president's re-election committee.

This validates the Bush administration's political, not scientific, licensing effort. It can do nothing but harm our efforts, since it reinforces the national Republican campaign to deviously approve a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

Yucca Mountain is permeable because it is composed of welded and un-welded volcanic tuff which has voids. Water moves through the mountain, and along with minerals and micro-organisms, it will corrode the stainless steel and titanium nuclear waste containers. These containers will corrode far sooner than 10,000 years.

Remember there were 36 possible sites and in 1987 only one was chosen -- that being Nevada, a politically weak state. It was politics then and it's politics now.

The Republican party has shot itself in the foot.

FRANK PERNA