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StumbleFormer governor: Yucca Mountain an ‘opportunity of a lifetime’
Steve Marcus/Sun, file photo
Left: Former Nevada Gov. Bob List speaks in favor of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository on Dec. 12, 2001, while a consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Right: Yucca Mountain is shown about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 | 5:25 p.m.
Sun coverage
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CARSON CITY – Former Gov. Robert List thinks the state should take a new look at construction of a $100 billion project to bury high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
List, now a private attorney in Las Vegas, said it could be a “Fort Knox” for the state. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to take a fresh look,” he told the Legislative Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste on Tuesday.
But Bruce Breslow, head of the state’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, said “The bookmakers have us favored” in canceling Yucca Mountain.
The U.S. Department of Energy has announced it is withdrawing its application to go forward with Yucca Mountain as a site for burial of nuclear waste.
List, who said he was an attorney for Esmeralda County, said anything can happen and “the project is not dead at this point.”
When Nevada opposed the Yucca Mountain project, Nevada had the only gaming in the nation and there was plenty of water for expansion. But now other states have casinos and the water supply is limited.
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime to take a fresh look,” at the proposed nuclear waste disposal site on the Nevada Test Site, List said. He urged the state to let scientists study the project and "if it could go forward, it could be very positive for our state."
At $100 billion, the former governor said it would be the biggest public works project in the world. And nuclear waste could be retrievable in the future, he said.
But Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Elko, told List, “I’m fearful it would become the garbage dump of America.” List rejected that idea and said it could be a “tremendous resource.”
List formerly represented the nuclear power industry but no longer has it as a client.
Assemblyman Jerry Claborn, D-Las Vegas, said he agreed 100 percent with List. He worked at the Nevada Test Site from 1957 to 1999 and said “I do support Yucca Mountain.”
But Breslow countered List, saying allowing Yucca Mountain to go forward “would not be a money maker.” He said in times of economic downturn, the state looks for easy money.
In this case, the state would receive $10 million or $20 million for mitigating circumstances and that “would not cover a tenth of the cost of the Highway Patrol” needed.
Breslow suggested to the committee it would be tough to retrieve and reprocess the waste, adding that it would produce large amounts of radiation.
Sen. John Lee, D-North Las Vegas, suggested the state try to gain ownership of the land at Yucca Mountain to stop the project, but Breslow said that would be “fruitless.”
The U.S. Department of Energy in March announced it was withdrawing its plan for Yucca Mountain, but that is still in the courts.
The committee didn't make any decisions. It will hold another meeting before making recommendations.
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Bob List: You'd better hurry! Dirty Harry's minions in the DOE are hell bent on having all staff off the project by the end of July, regardless of what the ASLB (NRC) rules in June or the Circuit Court rules in September! Letters are supposedly "on their way" to the Yucca Mountain contractors giving them their Warren-Act required 60-day notice....allowing the DOE to shut off the computers and close the doors by July 31. All in violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act....
Hey Bob,
Nothing stored at Fort Knox will kill ya, present a potential danger for generations, or give your grandkids one eye and three ears.
"List formerly represented the nuclear power industry but no longer has it as a client."
Gee, that's comforting.
I suggest that List store the waste in his private backyard. That he be eligible to store as much as he likes.
That could turn out to be a "Fort Knox" for him.
Plus he should be allowed the pass on the waste to his heirs.
That should guarantee them plenty of wonderful, highly radioactive waste that no one else wants for the next say 10,000 to 20,000 years.
Enjoy the plutonium!
AP
hey bobby...
quick question skippy...
do you have a financial interest in yucca???
hmmm???
how many chickens would we have to get from the feds to make having our children glow in the dark worth our while???
suzie q???
you out there???
and how many pieces of silver did you receive, mr. list, to pass this unbiased info to us yokels.
Must be a bunch of Reid supporters posting tonight. Since only 17% of the Las Vegas population has a college degree, it is also obvious that Reid can lie all day long to 83% of the population and with the lack of higher science education can fool the vast majority of the population.
You anti-Yucca people apparently accept things you can see, like a chlorine tanker running free in the valley that could have killed 250,000 people in 30 minutes, rather than safer stuff that is invisible because it is too complicated to understand.
Yucca Mountain can be designed to whatever standards Nevada wants - but oh no, Reid et al have convinced the 87% uneducated population that it is dangerous. All so Reid can be re-elected to do even more damage to the United States of America.
Contrary to the anti-posters, the NWPA allows unlimited payments to the host state. Nevada could specifiy the safety aspects of the facility, and require health care centers every 50 miles on the roads and railroads going to the site, thereby helping rural areas tremendously. Over $2 billion per year would flow into the state's economy.
If Yucca is shutdown, Nevadans deserve to continue to be slaves to the casinos and have the lowest education rate in the whole country.
The rest of the states with nuclear waste should boycott Nevada since it doesn't want to participate in the American Constitutional system. Try living in Nevada with no tourists.
This whole thing is nothing but Obama payola to Reid. When Reid loses and the Republicans retake Congress, Yucca Mountain will be completed on an accelerated schedule.
Right on! Reprocessing nuclear waste is good for America and Nevada.
Hasn't Reid demagogued this enough. Think of the jobs that would result from creating a way to end our dependence on middle east oil and provide us a safe and clean option for the electrical power we need to be first in the world.
Yucca is TEMPORARY storage; the technology is proven. Do you believe in clean, safe energy or are you someone who literally blows with the wind?
Just wait for a couple more years, by then Obama will be gone and Reid will be older than dirt so the next president will revive the project.
Finally a voice of reason. Trying to cancel the only single project that both add jobs and solve the states revenue problem was political pandering from the beginning.
Suffrin is right.
I detest Republicans like everyone else, but Yucca Mountain is a no-brainer for this state.
I wish people would ignore the rhetoric and find the facts before they dismiss this once in a lifetime opportunity. It would be safe, it would create jobs, property values would skyrocket, the economy in vegas would greatly improve....for everyone
Has the oil spill in the gulf taught us anything? There is no such thing as foolproof and we have to think about what the consequences are if something were to go wrong at a fully functioning Yucca Mountain. We would not be talking about losing a couple of seasons of visitors on the strip - it would decimate life as we know it in Southern Nevada.
People can make this into a Reid issue if they want, but lets all take a moment to remember how awful keeping the nations nuclear garbage in our backyard would be...
The problem is not the storage of Yucca.It is moving the waste from other locations to Nevada. For all the anti and pro waste people, have you ever heard of WIPP (waste Isolation Pilot Program). There was a lot of waste (true waste)moved though Nevada and other states to New Mexico for buried. I did not seem to hear a word from of either side of the parties on this issue. By the way it is not about waste. It is storing rods that have been enriched and can be used at a later time for other projects. As for List he was a one term Gov and he was on the same level as Gibbons. I was so glad he did not get reelected. As for the cash cow for Nevada the other writer was correct. Fed's offered Nevada at that time millions. Then the right and left found a way the put fear in the public so they could get elected. It worked very good. Nobody even thought about the 200 plus underground blast over the years at the test Site. The water table even this day is still checked for Gama, Beta and Alpha. The product is still in the under gound caverns from the blast. So what is the answer. Leave it where it is now, since it is more dangerious to move the product from there sites to Nevada. If there was a way to move product with thousands of police or troops to protect the product in route then it is safer in Yucca where it can be protected. But the in people and the politicians don't want to tell you is that they were going to move the product on rail and trucks from around the country without any protection from people who would die just to get one rod. The rods will put out somewhere of 1000 rems. Exposed to one rod for a few minutes and you can pretty much kiss your rear goodbye. In the long run the public will never know it was moved to Nevada because nobody even paid attention when WIPP material was moved. The issue makes me LOL
I don't understand why people are up in arms about the government putting waste in our "back yard." Its already there! Over a thousand nuclear weapons have been detonated in roughly the same location. Close to 2 tillion gallons of ground water is contaminated and its spreading. South central nevada is a nuclear waste dump with or without the yucca mountain project. We might as well get some money from the feds.
Not to worry... The shut down of Yucca is just an election year ploy by Obama to try to help get Harry Reid reelected.
Regardless of the election results, Obama will bring Yucca back on line after November...
As a Tea Party patriot, I don't trust the government with anything, especially Yucca Mountain. We neo-con Tea party patriots know the government lied to us about Iraq and WMD. They lied to us about Enron. Why should be believe them when they say Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage is safe? We Tea Party patriots know this is another federal bailout of the energy industry. Anyhoo, Sarah Palin is coming to town ... thank you Jesus!!!!
Gov. List was the worst Gov. in Nevada history, until Gov. Gibbons took the title away from him. Gov. List has only slightly more credibility than Gov. Gibbons.
I met a Tea Party patriot once, and robwhitetrash, you are no Tea Party patriot...
If waste is so great, why don't the cities that produce it, keep it and solve all their economic problems. This was the government ramming something down our throats without our input. This was Screw Nevada from the onset. I doubt many of the pro-Yucca people posting here or talking anywhere have any real connection to this city, to this county or to this State. Carpetbaggers don't care about the constant fight this state has had against the world vis a vis our self determinism. Yucca was always too close to Vegas... its bad for business and the transport issues make it worse. Kill this thing.
No nukes !!!!!!!!!
solar panels and wind mills when I wake up.Solar panel and Windmills when I lay down. Solar Panels and Windmills to my left.Solar Panels and Windmills to my right...............
A little over 1,000 nuclear bombs were exploded in So Nevada, about 100 of them above ground. At the time, the government assured everyone that they were safe.
The U.S. is just over 200 years old. During the roughly 40 years of nuclear testing, the govt polluted So. Nevada so badly that it is one of the most radioactive areas in the United States. And it will continue to be that way for tens of thousands of years.
So yes, why not--send the nation's waste here! I guess we haven't learned our lesson yet.
From Wikipdia:
"Each of the underground explosions--some as deep as 5,000 feet--vaporized a large chamber, leaving a cavity filled with radioactive rubble. About a third of the tests were conducted directly in aquifers, and others were hundreds or thousands of feet above the water table.
When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation remained, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the United States.
In the worst affected zones, radioactivity in the tainted water reaches millions of picocuries per liter. (The federal standard for drinking water is 20 picocuries per liter.) Although radiation levels in the water have declined over time, the longer-lived isotopes will continue to pose risks for tens of thousands of years.
A 1979 study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that:
A significant excess of leukemia deaths occurred in children up to 14 years of age living in Utah between 1959 and 1967. This excess was concentrated in the cohort of children born between 1951 and 1958, and was most pronounced in those residing in counties receiving high fallout.
In 1982, a lawsuit brought by nearly 1,200 people accused the government of negligence in atomic and/or nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s, which they said had caused leukemia and other cancers. Dr. Karl Z. Morgan testified that radiation protection measures in the tests were substandard."
"In a report by the National Cancer Institute, released in 1997, it was determined that ninety atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) deposited high levels of radioactive iodine-131 (5.5 exabecquerels) across a large portion of the contiguous United States, especially in the years 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1957--doses large enough, they determined, to produce 10,000 to 75,000 cases of thyroid cancer.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for people living downwind of NTS for at least two years in particular Nevada, Arizona or Utah counties, between 21 January 1951 and 31 October 1958, or 30 June and 31 July 1962, and suffering from certain cancers or other serious illnesses deemed to have been caused by fallout exposure to receive compensation of $50,000. By January 2006, over 10,500 claims had been approved, and around 3,000 denied, for a total amount of over $525 million in compensation dispensed to "downwinders"."
If the Old Kingdom of Egypt had decided to store nuclear waste back in 3,500 B.C., then the modern govt of Egypt would still have about another 10,000 to 20,000 years left to pay for guarding that waste and keeping it safe.
Probably would have seemed a great idea to a not-very-clever Pharaoh back then, but not to Egyptians today.
Why do so many Nevadans not care about trashing their environment and why are so many so willing to leave their deadly trash for the future?
AP
Bob is just another greedy republican who could
care less about the safety of Nevadans.
YUCCA IS DEAD.
Yucca mountain will rise like a Phoenix out of the ashes of Harry Reid's political burnout.
At last we will have a source of income instead of a tax.
I have not read all of the arguments here for or against this attached to this article. Lets just think about this for a second. How much do the people of Alaska get for the pipeline running through their state? How much did they spend to fight it and where did it get them? How much has Nevada spent so far as this is not over(think about it every state can now sue the federal goverment)? How badly do our schools state and local goverments need money(i have kids in school and one on the way)? What if at the bare minimum the goverment proclaimed a Federal Tax Holiday for the state of Nevada for the next 10 years? That could be just the tip of the iceberg if it was approached the right way.
Sorry there tullyroost, but Nevada's senior senator is not interested in helping the people of Nevada. He is too busy trying to fill his campaign coffers in a vain attempt to get reelected.
I'm LarryVegas and I endorse this message!
it is very simple boys and girls...
if yucca opens...
our children will glow in the dark...
period...
end of story...
you know...
beyond all doubt...
if the government buries the most toxic crap known to man in the ground...
in an earthquake prone area...
there will be a disaster...
period...
end of story...
oh by the way...
what;'s going on in the gulf of mexico these days...
hmmm...
I think we should open Yucca and make it the cash cow it can be.
If Republic Services can charge an arm and a leg for "household" waste imagine what we can get for "nuclear" waste.
Yucca is coming, we can either get on board and make a ton of cash or we can drag our feet and have it foisted on us.
Governor List is absolutely correct.
Three National Laboratories have said Yucca is safe.
National Academy of Science has said the materials could be shipped safely.
Oh wait, Harry Reid, a lawyer, said it wasn't scientifically safe and Bruce Breslow, a sportscaster agreed with Harry. Imagine that.
Harry distorted the science to create fear to try to win votes. Scientifically there is nothing wrong with Yucca. Not only is it safe but it would provide a significant opportunity for the State.
Yucca Mountain is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. We dont want it!!! Nuclear waste can be more safely stored on the site of the power plant. Shipping it all over the country to get it to Nevada is not a good idea.
@ markmegawatt -- I don't doubt that layoff notices will be received shortly by Yucca Mountain contractors. When the Chairman of the NRC ignores the NWPA, the line between what is legal and what is illegal has disappeared.
FYI, the law you refer to is the WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification).
I repect Mr. List but I respectfully disagree. I would NEVER support anyone who would push for this project. No! Absolutely NO!
The reference to Fort Knox is appropriate. There are 147.3 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox (see <http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun...>). At $1,219.90 per ounce (the current price for gold; see <http://money.cnn.com/data/commodities/>), that gold is an asset worth $179.7 billion. The nation's spent nuclear fuel has the energy equivalent of 6 billion barrels of oil (see <http://energy.senate.gov/hearings/testim... search for "6 billion"). At $74.89 per barrel (current price; see commodities website above), that spent nuclear fuel is an asset worth $449.34 billion. That is, the value of the energy content in the nation's spent nuclear fuel is two and a half times the value of all the gold in Fort Knox. -- Jeff Skov, 5/12/10.
Us Tea Party patriots know that the government is absolutely trustworthy and honest in everything they say, whether they say Yucca Mountain is perfectly safe, or they say Saddam Hussein has WMD, or they say ENRON and Kenny Boy are honest, or they say we don't torture detainees, or they say Halliburton is worthy of no-bid contracts, or they say "drill baby drill" offshore will not cause pollution.
Did List take one of Sue Lowden's champagne and caviar tours of Yucca?
We already dump tons of low level radioactive waste in Beatty -- in dirt pits. Yucca Mtn is much safer than what's leaking from your corner gas station.
Cash Cow???
" Breslow countered List, saying allowing Yucca Mountain to go forward "would not be a money maker." He said in times of economic downturn, the state looks for easy money.
In this case, the state would receive $10 million or $20 million for mitigating circumstances and that "would not cover a tenth of the cost of the Highway Patrol" needed."
Sounds like a lose-lose to me.
Why would the Neo-Nuts believe the Government on this, when they don't trust the Government on anything else???
Because they see $$$$$$$$.
bobby is another industry shill bought and paid for by the nuclear lobby. somebody find him a real job!
So much emphasis is pointed at YMP creating jobs, diversifying and making money.
The reality of all this is that this is only a temporary fix for the here and now for Nevada. And it is guaranteed this will not be worth it. We will end up being saddled with problems. Reprocessing nuclear waste is all talk...from everything I read, the technology has not kept up with the rhetoric about how it can be done easily. We get this stuff? We're stuck with it. Period. And problems that will effect health, habitability, safety and growth for all of Nevada will be the end result. And this will be felt not now, but generations down the road. All of this money and jobs talk is good for now, but years down the road, it won't mean a thing.
YMP to continue would be the same as selling our souls. And not only our souls, but the future generations of Nevada, placing a burden on them that they will look back and scratch their heads and think, the fools, what were they thinking when they did this to us? They did it to make money back then, but look where it got us now? Nothing but pain, misery and suffering.
You put a bunch of scientists, politicians and lawyers in a room together, they'll tell you ANYTHING to further their agenda. On top of that, you have alot of people who aren't even residents of Nevada all informing us what is best and trying to tell us what to do. To further their own ends. Now add to the mix a washed up Governor who seems to have a special interest in making the Yucca Mountain Project happen. I wonder how much money lines his pockets to say this stuff in the article above.
Out of all this, the biggest losers if this were to continue would be the citizens who reside in the Sovereign State of Nevada.
If YMP were to happen, it would be like everyone else urinating on Nevada's back...and contending loudly that it's rain. We'd get fleeced. Period.
Sure, we have problems here in this State. But this Yucca nonsense is not the be-all, cure-all for all the ills. It may fix things temporarily, but later on down the road it will only cause more problems tacked on to the problems we already face now. It's not a good trade off at all.
Kill this thing. No means no. And it STILL means no.
Great headline. No on Yucca? No problem. I have this bridge I would like to sell you right over here...
It's over.
YUCCA IS DEAD.
Another bad idea from George Bush bites the dust.
So teamster you want most of your fellow union brothers at Yucca out of a job then right?
teamster,
Yucca Mountain was not an idea of George Bush but of Congress in 1987. And as noted, approximately 20000 union members across the country could have had jobs.
Instead, DOE is indeed shutting the project. This week (June 9), all remaining workers received a WARN Act notice. By the beginning of September there will be no more contractor employees (who do all of the design!) will remain.
Kinda wonder why the Sun isn't gloating this week.
Plus Reid et al just guaranteed another 100 homes or more go into foreclosure. I hope the banks will sue DOE for the $20 to $30 million in damages, as should all of the other small businesses that are impacted, when the NWPA is finally upheld.