Letter: 9/11 should change the way we look at Yucca

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

Hurray for Harry Reid! The Senate majority leader didn't trust the Bush administration not to fill two of the five positions on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the holiday break, so he kept the Senate chamber active. Who can blame him? With the Yucca Mountain repository application's filing right around the corner, and with the administration in favor of a nuclear dump in Nevada, that was an intelligent move to protect Nevada and perhaps the U.S.

In her Nov. 25 story about the Senate pro-forma session, Sun reporter Lisa Mascaro writes that the repository application for a license is to be submitted to the NRC by the Energy Department next year.

But it's time, I think, for us as a nation to ask the question: Do we even want to parade fissile materials in front of terrorists, inviting them, in essence, to take them?

The repository concept was developed in 1957, 50 years ago, long before 9/11. Since 9/11, we've found out some people are trying to destroy this civilization. Do we really want to risk helping them do it?

What needs to happen right now, in my opinion, is for Congress to reexamine what we are about to do with the hauling of highly radioactive nuclear waste. The sterling record of the transportation industry in moving nuclear fuel was established over 60 years with shipments to 106 locations in total secrecy.

Shipments to Yucca Mountain, however, will be at the rate of six per day for 20 years to one single location. Terrorists need merely to lie in wait at the Nevada state line. To use the industry's shipment history to justify movement of waste to Yucca Mountain makes no sense. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

We hear about how low the uranium and plutonium content of the waste is. If terrorists get their hands on spent fuel rods, it won't be the amount that bothers us. It'll just be the fact that they were able to do it.

I think America needs to rethink this entire issue.

Ron Bourgoin, Rocky Mount, N.C.