Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 4:27 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION
September 25 - 26, 2004
The inevitability of the pessimist.
Las Vegas is not a city for pessimists. For sure, we have had our share. From the early days when Hoover Dam was just a technological dream, there were plenty of people who stood on the sidelines and bet against the reality of one of the great man-made wonders of the world. Today that dam is who we are or, at least, what provides us sustenance in the desert.
A few years later, Bugsy Siegel, a man with the kind of credentials for citizenship that would scare most people into moving, came out to this tiny desert town and put bricks and mortar in the place where there stood only his dreams of a city lighted with the promise of better tomorrows. Even then the naysayers cried out that it couldn't and wouldn't be done. And even if he did manage to build a multimillion-dollar extravaganza, no one would show. It took his untimely and rather dramatic death to make it a hit, but the Flamingo flourished and so did Las Vegas.
Each decade of Las Vegas' history has brought its own set of dreamers and builders, optimists all, who risked what they had to create a new reality in this most unique of all cities on the planet.
Whether it was Wilbur Clark and his groundbreaking Desert Inn and Milton Prell and the Sahara Hotel in the early '50s and '60s, Jay Sarno in the late '60s with Caesars Palace, Kirk Kerkorian with the mold-breaking MGM in the '70s and Steve Wynn in the late '80s with his own Mirage of a dream, Las Vegas has had more than its share of the kind of people who put their money and their mouths into building a better future for all who would take the chance on this growing desert oasis.
And each and every time there was even a hint of making this town into the Entertainment Capital of the World by building more and better, the chorus of negativity sprang to life and reminded each of us of the inevitability of failure. And, fortunately, they have been wrong each and every time.
I am reminded of this part of the history of Las Vegas because the forces of "no" are at it again. And this time it is over an issue that is as vital to the future of Las Vegas as all the dreams of our builders and all the water that flows our way from Hoover Dam. I am talking about the federal government's single and simple-minded effort to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. Just 90 miles from this place where dreams are made on a daily basis.
Recent polls -- skewed as they may be -- have tried to convince Nevadans of the inevitability of the dump site in an effort to get us to concede the fight, roll over and not only play dead but, in all probability, be dead once those trucks and trains start rolling our way.
Every Nevadan knows that this stuff is dangerous. That's why every other state in the union wants to send it out here. And every parent knows that their responsibility is to do what they can to make sure we don't become the nation's radioactive dumping ground because that would jeopardize our children, their children and theirs.
To give up to the "inevitability" of it all is playing into the hands of the people who want to send it here, because anything that weakens the incredible resolve Nevadans have shown against the dump makes our enemies stronger.
It is no secret that President George W. Bush and Congress want to bury us under 77,000 tons of radioactive waste that will remain deadly for more than 100,000 years. The president put the target on Nevada's back in 2001, and Congress has made it stick. If you want to talk inevitable, that would have been a good time.
But Nevadans did not give in or give up. We asked the courts to tell the president and his Department of Energy that "their" science was wrong. This summer, the court said that the federal government ignored the law and the science. Now the Yucca program is up in the air, for the first time in decades.
If ever there were a reason for optimism, this is it. Instead, the nuclear power industry and the White House would have us continue to believe that the dump is coming no matter what. And to make sure that happens, the administration is doing what it can to make sure it inevitably happens.
For one, Nevada doesn't have the money needed to provide oversight to the entire process. Bush's federal government just turned down our request for the money. Without it, the DOE can act with impunity. Just as it always has in Nevada.
For another, the DOE will soon ask Congress to change the rules so that the "science" is made to fit the reality of the government's inability to make the dump safe. President Bush will sign that bill. That's inevitable.
But the dump isn't.
We have it in our power to make sure we put the stake in the heart of this awful plan. But it takes courage on our part and a little bit of that faith those who came before us had in abundance.
Believe whatever else you want about the two candidates running for the White House this year, but when it comes to the radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, this much is clear and beyond doubt.
With George Bush as president, he will do what he can to make sure Nevada gets the dump. With John Kerry in the White House, the dump should be dead.
The dump inevitable? Not hardly.
This November, the future will be in our hands.
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