Opposing views show in Yucca surveys

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.

Nevada regional governments with opposing opinions on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump have studied how their citizens view the project, and the conclusions are as different as the areas in which the people who were surveyed live.

There were other differences as well, starting with the cost of the projects.

The study of fewer than 70 people in rural areas of Nevada, where governments have supported the dump as a way to invigorate moribund local economies, cost $212,000. Clark County, the state's most urban county with a government that steadfastly opposes the dump, interviewed 600 county residents at a cost of $18,000.

According to those who put the survey together for interviews in Nye, Esmeralda and Lincoln counties, the project consisted of six questions targeted for business leaders, community leaders and property owners, on how a proposed transport route for nuclear waste called the Caliente Rail Corridor would affect the respondents. The cost for each question came to about $505.

The Clark County survey, depending on how questions were answered, could include up to 140 questions, at a cost of about 20 cents per question. The official report about the study results is going through final polishing and should be released to the public within the next several weeks, Clark County consultants and officials said.

Those who put the survey together for the rural areas and those who worked on the Clark County effort said that direct comparisons of the two projects miss the point. The rural effort, funded through Energy Department funds, was based on dozens of face-to-face interviews with opinion shapers across the wide open spaces of central Nevada.

The Clark County effort, also funded by the Energy Department, was a telephone survey from Las Vegas. Irene Navis, planning manager for Clark County's Nuclear Waste Division, which works on Yucca Mountain issues, said the goal was to have a randomly selected group of people for a scientifically valid study that could be compared to earlier opinion research, to see how attitudes towards the dump have changed.

Navis said the results from the Clark County are under review, and the results should be released later this summer. She said the early review of the results show that residents here fear the impact the dump and radioactive waste transportation will have on property values and tourism.

Detailed input

The authors of the central Nevada project, which was completed under the auspices of the Central Nevada Community Protection Working Group, said in their study that the goal was to get "specific, detailed input from individuals whose lives would be most affected by the Caliente Rail Corridor and to begin the process of developing and providing a list of impacts and needed mitigation."

Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips, whose government approved the project, said the effort is a step towards understanding all the potential impacts of moving nuclear waste through central Nevada. He described the central Nevada work as more of a "conversation to gain understanding" than an effort to reach a final conclusion.

Among those whom Larry Lytle and Vaughn Higbee, the subcontractors for the work, interviewed were 16 property owners near the proposed transportation route for the nuclear waste, nine business owners, 18 "public service providers," 15 public officials and a handful of others from nonprofit groups and other interest groups.

Lytle and Higbee, in their report, said the face-to-face interviews in people's homes "provided a distinctly human touch to this report ... The emotional impacts were most profound."

"This report is not comprehensive. The interviews that were completed are not a scientific sample of those impacted by the Caliente Rail Corridor. Rather, they are ... a very personal and subjective look into the lives and concerns of a relatively few people."

The report did not produce definitive findings in the way that numerically based research would bring, but it generally found that those who were interviewed welcome the economic growth that they believe will come with Yucca Mountain and its rail corridor.

Lytle and Higbee also found that on the other hand, some are concerned that property that has been in some families for generations may be lost.

"Mitigation of the physical and financial impacts will be very complicated," the authors wrote. "Mitigation of the emotional impacts will be miraculous."

While Lytle and Higbee, two Lincoln County residents operating as L&H Consulting, wrote the report and conducted interviews, the lion's share of the funding went to Robison/Seidler, a consulting firm that has a long history of work both for rural counties and the Nuclear Energy Institute, an advocacy group supporting the Yucca Mountain dump and the rail corridor.

Ace Robison, company founder, is a former Energy Department deputy assistant secretary and chief of staff to former Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev. Robison is a past chairman of the Nevada Republican Party and, last year, was named by Gov. Kenny Guinn to the Colorado River Commission, which represents the state in discussions of Colorado River water and energy produced by Hoover Dam.

Working hard

Robison said his company worked hard for the money it made off the project, which started last year. Robison/Seidler billed $17,810 monthly for the effort, about double what Lytle and Higbee made every month.

"We earned our money," Robison said.

"We were out with the subs (subcontractors) a good deal of the time. We spent a good deal of time overseeing and focusing them. We wanted to use people who were local to the county. We did not want to use a professional organization. If we had used a professional organization, we would not have gotten the result that we needed to get.

"Otherwise, the local folks who were being interviewed, would have been hesitant to give their opinions," Robison said.

He said comparing the Clark County survey to the work in the rural counties was not fair.

"It's a qualitative study," he said. "It is not a quantitative study at all.

Robison said the subcontractors in many cases knew the people they interviewed personally -- which was an important part of the effort.

"What it was intended to be was a very personal interaction on a personal level with the business and property owners that would be most affected by the Caliente route," Robison said. "It was done by individuals who are people from Lincoln County, and it was almost a conversational thing. It discussed what your feelings are, whether it should be built, how you think it will affect you, and in a very subjective way, how do you feel about that."

Different in form

Navis, with Clark County, is usually on the opposite side of Robison on Yucca Mountain issues, but agreed that different kinds of studies would be very different in form, content and ultimate cost. Qualitative studies include such techniques as focus groups, forums or face-to-face interviews, with significant travel costs.

Quantitative surveys are usually done over the telephone, as it was for the Clark County effort, and that can be a lot cheaper to do than a face-to-face interview.

Terry Murphy, president of Strategic Solutions, a Las Vegas consulting firm that was one of several that worked on the Clark County study, said the difference in goals and techniques can explain the cost difference.

"I can easily see how a study could cost $200,000, especially if it involved face to face interviews and a lot of travel," she said. "It depends on how in-depth they go into the survey.

"Ours was quantitative. If his was qualitative, that can sometimes be more expensive ... With qualitative research you can get a much better insight into the community. You can get at some real nuggets of information that you might not get in a quantitative study. There is value to both."

Allen Benson, spokesman for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project, said the agency will review the spending of both the urban and rural efforts. He also defended the scope and purpose of the rural survey.

"There is an auditing process after the fact. There is also a routine monitoring process," he said of the appropriation for the rural survey. "This is money that has been appropriated for this program and the department believes would be of benefit to the program.

"We provide funds to produce information," he said. "The policymakers in these communities certainly are entitled to know the views of their constituents."

Some of those who have long been critical of the Yucca Mountain project said the funding for the survey represents business as usual for central Nevada governments.

"It's typical," said Louis Benezet, a Caliente resident and an outspoken voice against the project. The survey doesn't really represent the opinions in Lincoln County, he said.

"I'd say it's really stacked," he said of those who were interviewed in the rural survey. With the exception of a few, "most of those people are already supporters."

"They didn't interview me. They didn't interview ordinary people. That leaves a lot of people who were affected. Many of these people (who were interviewed) are among a select group that were wined and dined on behalf of Yucca Mountain in the past."

Another person who has not seen the completed survey of rural residents is Lincoln County Commissioner Hal Keaton, who was one of those interviewed.

Keaton, who opposes the Yucca Mountain project, said he was, however, able to get a copy of the transcript of comments he provided Higbee and Lytle. He said most of his comments were faithfully included in the transcript of his survey, except for one point.

"Everything that they put in there was accurate except the last statement, that I thought nuclear power plants were the best way to produce power. I've never said that."

Funding plan

Keaton criticized the funding plan for the central Nevada project. The Energy Department funding went through the Central Nevada Working Group to Nye County, which transferred the money to the Caliente in Lincoln County, which then formed the contract with Robison/Seidler.

He said the goal of the funding program was to avoid going through Lincoln County, where he would have oversight.

"The consultants totally run the program," Keaton said. "They convinced the working group and Nye County that they should funnel the money through Caliente. That way they don't have to work with me.

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