Letter: Bush ignored science questions at Yucca dump

Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 8:49 a.m.

This regards the Las Vegas Sun's Aug. 24 article headlined, "Candidates duke it out with Yucca ads."

George W. Bush has said of Yucca Mountain, "When I campaigned here (in 2000), I said I would make a decision based upon science, not politics. ... I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner. And that's exactly what I did."

In December 2001, however, Spencer Abraham, Bush's energy secretary, did away with 17-year-old site suitability guidelines, which required that Yucca be disqualified from any further consideration if rainfall had moved through the site and back into the environment within the past 1,000 years, a safety test it clearly failed. That same month, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that 293 key scientific studies remained incomplete at Yucca, and concluded any site recommendation decisions should be postponed indefinitely.

Despite this, on Jan. 10, 2002, Abraham notified Gov. Kenny Guinn that Yucca was suitable for a dump. On Jan. 24, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a presidentially appointed panel of scientists and engineers that oversees Yucca, reported that "the technical basis for the Energy Department's repository performance estimates is weak to moderate."

Despite such warnings, Abraham recommended the dump on Feb. 14. Bush disregarded 15 years of science and 15,000 public comments in opposition, rubber-stamping the dump less than 24 hours later. Politics trumped science.

KEVIN KAMPS

Editor's note: Kevin Kamps is a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The Washington-based NIRS is the information and networking center for citizens and environmental organizations concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation, and sustainable energy issues.