A Message From Brian Greenspun

It's time to break the silence on Yucca Mountain

By Brian Greenspun / Las Vegas Sun

When we decided to publish the very special Yucca Mountain section inserted in this week's newspaper, it was with the desire and intent to place before the business community the facts and circumstances that could very well shape the business life in this community for decades and decades to come. I don't know why we felt the need to do so because everyone else in Nevada has understood for a long time the potential for disaster that will lurk aboard every truck and trainload of nuclear waste that enters this state bound for Yucca Mountain.

Certainly the business folks aren't stupid. They aren't naive. And they aren't oblivious to the very obvious fact that our government is trying to force upon us a few thousand years of potential devastation, centuries of sickness and decades of anxiety that we haven't chosen for ourselves. This could well be the first time in history that the federal government has forced upon a state a situation against the overwhelming majority will of the people who live in that state. In short, as good business people, we would or should never voluntarily accept heartache, illness or just plain unnecessary difficulty being foisted upon us by others merely because others don't want to deal with the problem themselves.

And yet, that is exactly what we are allowing to happen to us and I am at a loss to explain why. Is Las Vegas' vibrant and growing business economy so intent on next month's bottom line that it has forgotten about next year's profits? Are those of us who profit from providing goods and services to this burgeoning population so focused on this year's problems that we have allowed ourselves to lose sight of next year's or, bite your tongues, next decade's, challenges? Apparently we have and that puts us way behind our customers.

If there is one group of Nevadans who fall way short in supporting Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and Gov. Kenny Guinn in their efforts to stop Yucca Mountain in the United States Senate, it is the folks who claim to have the best interests of the customer in mind. Isn't that what we always say? What is good for our customers is good for us? And, yet, when it comes time to get out front and lead the charge with our time, talents and financial resources, there is a strange silence among those who profit most from good and steady times. And you can put the Chamber of Commerce at the top of the list of those who haven't done nearly enough to beat the drums of support for our elected officials who are trying valiantly to defy the odds and the president of the United States.

Now, I may be willing to concede that there is the slimmest of chances that nothing bad might ever occur as a result of the federal government's effort to ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada. Should we never have an accident, an environmental disaster like an earthquake, volcanic eruption or just some of that groundwater the DOE knows all about seeping into the mountain and rupturing the casks, then life will go on pretty much like it has. But that is a huge risk to take because even the government admits that accidents will happen. If the government can do that much, shouldn't we accept the reality that most certainly will come? What happens to our businesses then?

The DOE says with certainty that a minimum of close to 100 truck or train accidents will happen. Some government experts will opine as many as 400. I don't know if they will all occur in Las Vegas or if some will ruin the lives of people in Des Moines, St. Louis, New York City or Salt Lake City, but they will happen and lives and property will be lost. I think it is far more prudent to accept at least what the government says will happen and double or triple that amount just because the DOE has always lied to us and the government has always underestimated the potential for disaster.

Take this weekend's accident on the Arkansas River. Interstate 40, one of the major East-West arteries of the United States, is now useless as a federal highway for at least six months because of an accident. And, just as an aside, remember not too many weeks ago that tunnel disaster and fire near Baltimore that could have contained high level plutonium waste? Suppose either one of those happened on I-15 between here and Los Angeles? You guess what would happen because I don't need to. I know.

One of the lucky people whose vehicles fell into the Arkansas River escaped with his life. His truck, which was headed for Nevada, didn't. Suppose that instead of water hoses that rig was carrying nuclear waste? Deadly radioactive waste would now be lying at the bottom of the river and the few people who lost their lives when the highway collapsed into the river would be the very least of the problems facing those folks in Oklahoma.

Brian Greenspun is president and editor of the Las Vegas Sun. The Greenspun family owns In Business Las Vegas.

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