Letter: Store nuke waste where it is made

Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 9 a.m.

Jim Raleigh was incorrect on a few comments in his Sept 16 letter, "Feds, not plants, own nuke waste."

He was correct when he said the federal government owns the nuclear waste. Another way to say this, however, is that the American people were sold out when Congress gave them the liability of nuclear waste storage. Who has responsibility for the ashes in a coal-fired power plant? Certainly not the American people.

He was wrong when he said that the $23 billion to $25 billion in surcharges paid so far by ratepayers was for the development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The surcharge was for storage. Yucca Mountain, selected by Congress in 1987 in the so-called "screw Nevada bill" as the only site in the nation to be considered for nuclear waste storage, was a political sellout. What was scientific in selecting only one site, and that in a politically weak state? It was politics then and it is politics now!

Nuclear waste should remain where it is -- in dry cask storage. Why risk accidents and terrorism in transporting this toxic waste? As far as the state reaping federal benefits in exchange for storing it, I ask: Benefits? What benefits? Thyroid cancer?

FRANK PERNA