Caliente Mayor a Yucca advocate

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, Oct. 6, 2005 | 7:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- In a roomful of Yucca Mountain's top supporters gathered Wednesday on Capitol Hill, a Nevadan led the chorus.

"We hear all the bad stuff about 'yucky mountain' but that site has great attributes," Caliente Mayor Kevin Phillips said. "I disagree with the idea that we can scare this thing away."

Phillips spoke at a meeting billed as "Yucca Mountain Summit III," which included several pro-nuclear, pro-Yucca groups, including the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying arm.

The meeting was set to lay out a "blueprint for success" for the project that has been beset by problems. Phillips said the Energy Department needs to get its "ducks in a row" so Nevadans can see that once Yucca opens, it will be safe.

Phillips is a rarity among public officials in Nevada, where the bulk of elected leaders oppose the project.

The state is officially against Yucca Mountain and has spent millions of dollars to fight it. Polls have shown Nevadans consistently against the repository and the idea of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste coming into the state.

But Phillips sees Yucca Mountain as an economic development tool for his town, population 1,014. Under the proposal, a rail line would take waste to Yucca Mountain and it would run through Caliente.

Phillips, though, made a point to come to the conference so federal officials and industry executives would not think that all Nevadans oppose the site such as "Mr. Loux and his crew," referring to Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state office fighting Yucca.

"Nevada's approach in today's world is counterproductive to Nevada," Phillips said.

Loux, reached by phone, dismissed Phillips and said he didn't have the scientific or technical knowledge to declare Yucca a good site.

"Kevin is only a small-town mayor in Nevada and does not represent Nevada," Loux said.

Phillips encouraged the group to press forward and solve Yucca Mountain's problems. He called the repository at Yucca "inevitable," saying the need for more nuclear power, and a place to put the waste, is not going to go away.

"It's bigger than all of us," Phillips said. "It's not a Caliente issue, or a Nevada issue or even a national issue, it's an international issue."

Just don't tell that to a Nevada crowd.

Sun reporter Cy Ryan contributed to this story.