Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

SUN EDITORIAL:

It’s just fool’s gold

Common sense should tell you that the Yucca Mountain project is deadly

The federal government for decades was on a crusade to bury 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. But today this state has never been closer to seeing the Yucca Mountain project finally finished off.

Keeping a campaign pledge, President Barack Obama is in the process of killing the project with the steady and invaluable assistance of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The effort over the years by Nevadans to derail this project has been largely unified, drawing opposition that has been bipartisan and bereft of ideological divisions. That is why it is so strange that, as Nevada is within a whisker of ending the Yucca Mountain project for good, there are still whispers out there that the state should capitulate and let man’s deadliest waste be buried here in return for financial benefits from the federal government.

Just last week former Republican Gov. Bob List, who once represented the nuclear power industry but no longer does, suggested the Yucca Mountain project could be a “Fort Knox” for the state. List, speaking before the state’s Legislative Committee on High-Level Radioactive Waste, said “it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to take a fresh look.” The Las Vegas Sun’s Cy Ryan reported that List went on to say that, at $100 billion, it would be the largest public works project in the world. But state Sen. Dean Rhoads, a Republican from Elko, aptly told List: “I’m fearful it would become the dump of America.”

Indeed, Nevadans have heard countless times from the nuclear power industry’s cheerleaders that Yucca Mountain would be a virtual gold mine. They claim it would help the state by creating new construction jobs and that it would result in the hiring of employees to watch over the facility once it was built.

For starters, if being the final resting place for man’s deadliest waste is such a great deal, then why aren’t the other 49 states in the nation clamoring to get the dump put in their state? The answer is obvious: They’re no fools.

The nuclear power industry and its supporters also have suggested the state should throw in the towel in return for money. But what price can you put on the safety and well-being of Nevadans? Besides, if there were an accident involving the transportation or storage at the dump just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, it would forever harm our tourist-based economy. Additionally, one would have to be naive to think that the federal government, which already is straining under an enormous debt, would gladly throw money at Nevada to concede the fight.

Despite the long odds of preventing the nuclear-waste dump from being granted a license to operate, the state has for years fought the issue in the courts and Reid was instrumental in limiting funding to the project, essentially buying the state time as it marshaled the facts on its side, showing just how dangerous it would be to ship nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada and bury it here in a seismically active region. All along the cooler heads in Nevada, the ones leading the opposition to the dump, prevailed. It sure wasn’t easy, but who in their right mind would consider conceding the fight when victory is within our grasp?

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