Letter: Leaving nuclear waste in place is best solution

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2005 | 9:22 a.m.

This is in reference to Sun reporter Suzanne Struglinski's Jan. 5 article headlined, "U.S. Chamber maintains support for nuclear dump." The article was obviously of interest to your readers, as the nuclear dump is planned for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In the article, Struglinski quotes Thomas Donohue, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's chief executive, as saying about high-level nuclear waste: "If we ever put a map on the wall of everywhere nuclear waste is stored, there would be a sense of panic."

No there wouldn't.

I've been writing about the high-level nuclear waste issue for years and I find that almost nobody cares. The only ones who have a lukewarm concern are those living near sites where some radioactive contamination has been found.

Bruce Josten, Donohue's executive vice president for government affairs, is quoted in the same article as saying that nuclear wastes can't be stored "above ground all across the country." Well, why not?

Only last month a national study group said storage casks could withstand aircraft crashes. And equally recently came a recommendation that two huge surface storage facilities be built on both sides of the Mississippi. Actually, two facilities the size of Rhode Island invites trouble, so it's actually quite preferable to leave the wastes spread out over the 100-plus storage areas nationwide.

RON BOURGOIN Rocky Mount, N.C.

Editor's note: Ron Bourgoin was a consultant to the North Carolina town of Rolesville in 1984 when a site there was being considered by the Energy Department as the location for a high-level nuclear waste repository.