Editorial: Beware: Yucca not dead

Friday, March 23, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.

Many horror movies reach their climax when the monster - human or otherwise - finally appears to have been killed but attacks again as people gather around to make sure. Could this be the case in Nevada's real-life horror story called Yucca Mountain?

Our story began in 1978 when federal scientists, responding to complaints from managers of the nation's nuclear power plants, began eyeing Yucca Mountain as a potential burial site for the plants' deadly nuclear waste.

In page-turner style, with Congress and President Reagan emerging as central characters, Yucca Mountain was singled out as the only site in the country to be studied for its potential to hold, virtually for an eternity, 77,000 tons of radioactive material.

With the mountain located just 90 miles northwest of fast-growing Las Vegas, the issue became a monster. But today, after successfully battling the project for more than 20 years, many leading Nevadans are calling it dead.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Lisa Mascaro, in a story this week, however, quoted Yucca experts who cautioned that it is not time for people to start gathering around just yet. Yucca lives, and could just lash out again.

Although the project has taken innumerable direct hits on safety issues, it is still drawing breath in the form of half-a-billion dollars a year from the federal budget.

Comments such as those made last week by outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield show why Nevadans should not get complacent. The Energy Department, owing to safety issues raised by Nevada, has so far missed its deadlines to file an application with the commission for approval to operate Yucca Mountain. Even if the department misses its next deadline, set for June 2008, a "Plan B" could emerge, showcasing a new management scheme involving a "public-private" partnership, Merrifield told Mascaro.

Nevada must stay vigilant, as the federal government seems intent on proceeding, however slowly, with a Yucca Mountain dump despite all of the dangers posed by transportation and geologic storage. Scientists say storing the waste on-site - at the nuclear power plants where it is produced - in dry casks will be a safe alternative for at least the next 100 years. In our view, Congress should redirect the money now going to Yucca Mountain to that alternative. Only when Yucca's funding is shut down completely will it be safe to finally call this project dead.