Editorial: Quittin’ time for Yucca Johnny

Saturday, March 25, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.

Just when it seemed that the Energy Department couldn't get any more desperate or extreme in its push to bury high-level nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, out steps Yucca Johnny.

According to a story in Friday's Las Vegas Sun, the agency's latest propaganda scheme is a Web site that tells children in kindergarten through 12th grade why the government thinks it is a good idea to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Nevada.

"What if we took out the garbage, but let it pile up in our yards?" Yucca Johnny asks. "Over time, our neighborhoods would become very unhealthy places to live."

So we dump our garbage in the neighbors' yard instead? Yucca Johnny doesn't say that, but it's what the Energy Department proposes to do. Nevada is to be the nation's unlucky neighbor.

Allen Benson, external affairs director for the Yucca project, told the Sun that such federal "Youth Zone" Web sites typically are used to explain federal programs to children. "Our job in the Youth Zone is to present factual information on the project at a level the kids can understand," he said. What Yucca Johnny doesn't say is that the Energy Department's version of the facts is the problem, not the solution.

We have laws against using cartoon characters to sell slot machines and cigarettes (think Joe Camel) because children might embrace concepts that are bad for them. Why would we accept using a cartoon to sell them on the idea of burying all of the nation's high-level nuclear waste less than 100 miles from their hometown?

Children don't need a cartoon character to tell them what is easily understood by most people: Nuclear waste is dangerous. Don't let anyone bury it in your back yard.