Letter: Now is not time to relax in fight against Yucca

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 | 9:13 a.m.

I don't think it's smart for the Nevada Legislature to support scaling back on funding for the Yucca Mountain fight. I agree with Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, that it's the wrong message to send to Nevada's citizens.

Now is not the time to relax. The Energy Department is not going to walk away from a $6 billion investment, and I'm afraid Nevadans will feel the fight is over.

If you look at how much high-level radioactive waste is repository-bound from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash., and the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., there's enough at those two facilities to fill two mountains. And when you add the spent-fuel rods from commercial nuclear reactors, that's enough to fill another mountain, for a total of three needed mountains.

When you look at the Energy Department's lists of potential repositories, all of them are in bad shape. They're all cracked, and will become more so from dynamiting and drilling. Believe it or not, in spite of its 39 faultline fractures, Yucca Mountain is the best site on any of the department's lists. It might be that the project will be delayed for 10 years, but mark my word, it will not be abandoned.

RON BOURGOIN Rocky Mount, N.C.

Editor's note: The writer is a former consultant to the North Carolina community of Rolesville, which opposed a plan to store nuclear waste near where its residents live.