Editorial: Dangerous Yucca proposal

Monday, Feb. 27, 2006 | 7:37 a.m.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based organization that lobbies on behalf of nuclear power plants, wants to make the specter of Yucca Mountain even worse than it has been for the past 20 years.

Ever since Congress chose Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the only site in the country to be studied for its potential as a permanent burial ground for the nation's nuclear waste, its capacity for the deadly material has been capped at 77,000 tons.

The Nuclear Energy Institute would like to see that raised, perhaps by as much as another 38,000 tons.

Nevada has proven over the past two decades that any amount of waste buried underneath Yucca Mountain would be unsafe. Yucca Mountain, no matter how imposing it looks and no matter how dry the surrounding desert appears, would not be a sufficient barrier to ground water contamination.

Energy Department scientists have developed what they say are high-tech casks to encase the waste to compensate for Yucca Mountain's geological inability to safely contain it. They have developed shields to protect the casks from dripping water. Yet none of the department's science has stood up, either in courtrooms, laboratories or in computer modeling tests. That is why Yucca Mountain is in limbo now, its federally projected date for opening suspended indefinitely.

The Nuclear Energy Institute chooses to ignore the scientific findings by Nevada and researchers from outside the state. And it ignores Nevada's common-sense argument that transporting the waste to Yucca Mountain from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants would inevitably lead to a mass-casualty accident or act of terrorism at some point during the daily trips over a period of 25 years.

Now the Nuclear Energy Institute is urging the Bush administration to increase the tonnage limit at Yucca Mountain. It says it could hold much more than 77,000 tons, perhaps as much as 115,000 tons. The danger in this request is that Bush, whose attitude toward Yucca is driven not by science but by political pressure from operators of nuclear power plants, just might agree.

Nuclear waste should be stored right where it is, safely at the nuclear power plants, until a solution is found that is more sane than endangering Southern Nevada for the rest of time.