Salt Lake mayor joins Yucca fight

Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON -- Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, whose city lies on the nuclear transportation route, testified May 22 against Yucca Mountain. He said more waste would travel through his town than any city besides Las Vegas.

"Without adequate research as to the safety of transporting this waste, without details of where and how it will travel, the American public, our representatives in Congress, and our federal regulatory agencies are being asked to sign off on one of the most expensive projects, and perhaps the most dangerous project, in the history of the United States," Anderson said.

Anderson testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Yucca supporter Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Yucca foes are "really in the business of trying to generate as much fear as possible."

Anderson said that's a mischaracterization of the anti-Yucca argument. "We are attempting to point out some of the massive terrorist risks," Anderson said.

A panel testifying included Grand Valley State University (Michigan) Professor James Ballard, a terrorism expert and Nevada consultant; and Stephen Prescott, director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah.

Ballard said terrorists are drawn to nuclear targets, especially targets that are part of a federal project. An accident could stigmatize a city and devastate its economy, he said.

Prescott testified about the potential for people to get cancer from a nuclear waste accident. Prescott's institute still treats people from Western states whose cancers they likely developed from exposure to the fallout of nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, he said.

"Now the citizens of the same region are being asked to assume the risk of a (another) round of radiation exposure," he said. "We are told, again, that the risk will be low. But will an anticipated accident during the transportation cause my neighbors to develop lung cancer? Leukemia? Bone tumors?"

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