Editorial: Forcing the door open

Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 | 9:12 a.m.

It's bad enough that the federal government wants to use Yucca Mountain as a burial site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste -- take the politics out of this plan and it would fail every scientific test. But to meet in secret about anything concerning Yucca Mountain, especially here in our own state, is almost as bad. Yet that's what's been happening as elected officials from the city of Caliente and Nye, Esmeralda and Lincoln counties met repeatedly this year to discuss an aspect of the Energy Department's transportation plan.

Transportation is one of the more dangerous aspects of the Yucca Mountain plan. Deadly waste would be hauled thousands of miles across the country for decades, inviting irreparable disaster. The final leg of the trip from nuclear power plants to Yucca Mountain would be via a proposed rail line from rural Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

In April this newspaper and the Nevada Press Association filed a complaint with the state attorney general's office after we learned that the elected officials were discussing this proposal -- behind closed doors. This month, the office agreed that the meetings violated the state open meeting law and cited the group for a "pattern of deception, privacy, exclusion and non-disclosure." A proposed settlement would have the group reconsider its past agenda items in public, and a spokesman for the group said its members will comply.

The state of Nevada has sued the Energy Department over this proposed rail line on the grounds that federal environmental policies are not being followed. All discussion of it should be held in public. The attorney general's office said it "stands ready to litigate this case" if the group meets again in private. We hope the group's members got the message.